Like Passing Notes in Secrecy
by smc-27
Summary: He's never really missed a girl before. He never cared enough, really, to miss anyone.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Hi! I started this little story when I heard Taylor Swift's _Enchanted_ and fell in love with the line _please don't be in love with someone else_. It turned into _this_ and it's 13 chapters. I hope you like it.

**... ... ...**

It's for the best, really. They're young and going in different directions, and this whole thing was new anyway. They've only been dating a month, and it's practically just a summer fling that started because they bumped into one another on the back deck at Mike's house at a party, and Noah admitted he'd always thought she was hot, and she, for some reason, admitted the same. He'd kissed her and she didn't stop him. She didn't want to. Now she's sitting next to him at the edge of her bed, their legs touching and neither of them saying a word. There are boxes and bags packed and sitting by the door of her bedroom, and all that is, is a reminder of why he's here and why she's just told him it's for the best if they break up. Or stop being together, or whatever the right thing would be, since they never really labeled anything in the first place.

"Yeah," he says after a good two minutes of silence.

"This is hard," she says quietly, admits it like a secret because maybe it should be one.

A month doesn't seem long enough.

"I'll probably miss you, or whatever," he tells her.

She smiles a little bit and looks to her lap, wondering if he thinks her shorts are as short as she suddenly thinks they are. (He does.) "I would probably be okay with that." He bumps her shoulder with his, then leans over and kisses her skin right next to the strap of her tank top. See, he likes to pretend he's not romantic, but he is, however untraditionally. "I'll miss you."

"Hey, we can, like, talk or whatever."

She knows they won't. There's no way she's going to pick up if he calls (it'd be too hard) and she knows he only really uses text messaging for dirty purposes (knows it first hand). He'll leave here today and that'll be that. He'll go to Montana to play football and she'll go to New York City to try and make something of herself, and maybe they'll see one another sometime down the line. She needs to tell herself not to look forward to that, or she'll hang onto him forever. She needs a clean break from Lima and all the people there. There are only a handful of them who think she's worth anything at all, so it's difficult not to hang onto one of those. More difficult than it should be.

"Maybe," she says, though she thinks the chances of him calling are slim anyway.

He stands, leans over to kiss her forehead. She looks up at him after and he gives her this little grin she's never, ever seen him wear before, and kisses her properly, lets his hand tangle in her hair. There's a lump in her throat as he pulls away, and he traces her bottom lip with his thumb, which shouldn't feel nearly as intimate as it does, considering everything they've done together in the last month.

"I'll see you," he says. He walks towards her door and she watches him look at the pile of her things, ready to go with her to New York. "Good luck, hey?"

She smiles and nods. "You too."

He winks, then he's gone, and she should probably be crying or something, but she wants to be stronger than that so she keeps the tears in check.

Part of her wishes they'd gotten together sooner so a long distance relationship didn't seem so scary, or maybe he could have come with her to New York. She knows she's selfish for thinking it, but she's always been selfish anyway, so she doesn't really care. It's too late for what ifs and she doesn't want to play that game, so she just calls her dad's office and asks him if he wants her to do anything for dinner.

She still thinks of Noah all night, though, and part of her wishes she could have waited and had one last good night with him before the ending they both knew was coming.

But there's that selfish thing again.

... ... ...

Yeah, it sucks that they broke up or whatever, because Rachel's a really cool girl, but part of him is really happy he's not going to be one of those pathetic losers who has a long distance girlfriend at the start of his freshman year and misses out on all the fun of frosh and, you know, being a freshman. He needs to leave that shit behind (that shit being Lima) and do something totally different for a while. Given that no one ever thought he'd make anything of himself, he figures he's already halfway towards proving them all wrong.

Montana's nice. Gorgeous, actually, and if he had anyone to send pictures to, he'd take some. His mom doesn't care about the scenery, she's just pissed at him for going so far away. It wasn't really a plan - he'd applied to a few schools closer, too - it's just that he got a scholarship to this one somehow, and he wasn't going to turn that down. Besides, being far away from all his mistakes and all the shit that always held him back is definitely a good thing.

So yeah, the Rachel thing was cool for a while. She's kind of the nicest chick he knows, plus she's got some hidden skills he wishes he'd known about earlier. Not that he was only hanging out with her 'cause she looks so fucking good naked on his bed. He was really starting to like her. He knows them ending things was all for the best, but damn, he didn't realize he'd miss her. He's never really missed a girl before. (Beth doesn't count.) He always just...

Well, he never cared enough, really, to miss anyone.

He's not dumb enough to think they would have survived long distance. He knows himself too well, and he knows her pretty well, too. He would have fucked it up or she would have smothered him. Even if she's way cooler than he ever assumed, he knows damn well she would have been really needy and stuff, and that's fine if that's her style, he just can't deal with that. He just can't. He doesn't need to constantly call or text and send care packages and coordinate visits home. That's just not him. Rachel would have wanted that and he can't give it to her, and he doesn't really want to. Their fling was fun, and she's great, but it ended for pretty good reasons and he's not going to sit around and regret it.

The first girl he sleeps with (thank god for the single room) has dark brown hair and a slim little body, and when he wakes up in the morning to a face full of that hair, he calls her Rachel and she doesn't exactly appreciate it.

Maybe the breakup sucks a little more than he thought it did.

He tells everyone he's got a thing for redheads and sticks to those pretty much exclusively.

He gets a postcard from her a few weeks into the semester. It's one of those ones you can make yourself, and it's a picture of herself (she's fucking shameless, so she probably had some random person snap it for her) in front of some building he should probably recognize but doesn't. There's a little message on the back, just the basics, and she's signed it in her loopy writing. He sticks it in the drawer of his desk and forces himself to stop smiling long enough to get his stupid reading done for this class he has to take.

After a half hour, he grabs the postcard out of the drawer and looks at it again. She's wearing jeans and a tee shirt and has a scarf around her neck. She looks hot. Different somehow, but hot. He'd write her back, but he doesn't really know what to say, so he just goes back to his work.

He forgets that postcard is in there until he's looking for condoms one night (it's a fucking dire situation, too) and stumbles upon it. Talk about his conscience slapping him in the damn face. He ends up kicking the girl out and telling her he doesn't do shit unprotected (not a lie) and she's pissed or something but he doesn't care.

He calls Finn, 'cause Finn knows everything Brittany knows (scary fucking thought) but Brittany knows everything Santana knows, and Santana knows _everything_.

He doesn't _ask_, but Rachel's doing fine and loving school and making New York her bitch.

He smiles and says, "Cool," and tries to sound totally uninterested.

... ... ...

She runs into Matt at the end of September. They haven't seen one another since a party sometime after their junior year, when she was with Finn and Matt was with some cheerleader from his new school. They danced together to some popular hip-hop song, laughed and caught up. He's going to Columbia on an athletic scholarship. She's impressed with him for going Ivy. He and Santana are the only two she knows who did. And Columbia (and Matt) is closer to her than Harvard is. (Who knew Santana Lopez had the brains and desire to go to Harvard?)

It's nice to see a familiar face. He takes her for coffee and they talk about their first month of college, their friends. It's strange, but they're not really 'their' friends. They haven't been his in a long time, and they were never really hers at all. He doesn't seem surprised at all that Finn and Brittany are together and going to OSU. He also doesn't seem all that shocked that Quinn and Sam are wearing (promise) rings and living in separate apartments in the same building as they go to school together at Penn State.

She shouldn't smile when he says he always thought Mercedes was a bitch. She does, though, but doesn't agree or disagree.

"Puck?" he asks casually, just because he's next on the list.

She looks to her coffee cup and runs her finger around the top. "He's in Montana playing football," she says, trying to sound conversational and like it hasn't been as hard to get over him as it has.

She looks up just in time to see Matt's grin. "Good for him," he says sincerely. "That's really great."

It is, so she agrees. She's more proud of Noah than maybe she should be, but she doesn't care. She knows he's proud of her, too. He told her one night when they were laying on the tarmac of the mostly abandoned airport at the edge of town.

(And he was right. You can see the most stars from there.)

Matt takes her out one night and it feels different than the others. For one, it's dinner. It's not just a movie or a coffee or an art show or a party. It's dinner at a nice restaurant where he made reservations, and he tells her to dress up, then shows up at her door with flowers in his hands. So she thinks this is a date she didn't even know she was going on.

It's a good one, too.

For whatever reason, she and Matt have a lot in common. He's basically become her best friend over the last few weeks, and she loves spending time with him. When he smiles at her across the dinner table as they finish their dessert, he tells her he has a bottle of wine at his place if she's interested. She decides that she is.

They drink a bit and she ends up free-falling and wanting to kiss him, but she doesn't want to do it under the influence, and he must not either, because he just tucks her into his bed and sleeps on the couch like a gentleman.

She wakes him up in the morning and they spend the entire day making out, laying around on his bed.

She honestly never expected it, him, or anyone, really. But it's nice.

... ... ...

He goes home for Christmas/Hannukah/Whatever, and Rachel's not there. Sucks, 'cause he was hoping for a few weeks of awesome sex and whatever. He doesn't know why he just assumed she'd be willing. Maybe because they spent half the summer trying to fuck one another into unconsciousness. (Totally wasn't just that, not at all, but some days he still thinks they came close.)

Then he hears she's with Matt Rutherford, and he's fucking pissed that no one told him that shit before (even if they didn't know he'd care, since they didn't know he ever had her to begin with). He gets drunk alone in his room and blames it on the fact that Kurt can't throw a party worth a goddamn, not on the fact that Rachel's fucking someone else.

He bangs Santana one night because she likes it rough and it makes him feel better. He's not using her, really, because she's using him, too. Whatever. It evens out and he doesn't have to feel bad about taking her from behind and pulling her hair maybe a little too hard. Plus, she wears this hot as hell little smile after when she looks at him and he's pretty sure she liked it more than she even should have.

"What's your damage?" she asks when he takes her out for fries at the shitty little diner she loves 'cause the boss' son gives her free shit.

"What?"

"You've been acting like a little bitch all break."

"Fuck you," he bites out, stealing a handful of food off her plate. "Nothing. Forget it."

She rolls her eyes. "I know you, papi. You can't lie."

"Don't fuckin' call me that," he warns her. Fuck, he hates that. She's always done it just to piss him off. "It's nothing."

She grins and sits back in the booth, tosses a crispy fry into her mouth. "'S'a girl."

"Jesus!" he groans, dropping his hand onto the table. "I said it's nothing. Fuck off already. If I wanted a fucking inquisition, I'd spend more than an hour at a time with my nana."

Her eyes get all narrow and she leans forward so she's right in his face. "If you ever compare me to your crazy Jewish nana again, I'll seriously cut you."

He laughs and leans over to kiss her forehead. "Fine. But quit it with the 20 fucking questions. I don't keep you around because you're good at talking."

Oh, fuck. Wrong thing to say. She gets this glimmer in her eye and stands up, heading for the door without paying a cent for anything on the table.

"Not really true, papi."

He drops a $20 on the table and follows her out, despite her use of the stupid nickname.

Truth is, Rachel's better at talking (in any situation) than anyone he's ever been with.

If he thinks about her a little bit when he's with Santana, it's totally just...

Fuck it. It's because he really misses the shit Rachel could do with her body. And _to_ his.

He thinks of calling her to wish her happy Hanukkah, but it'd be way too random and she's probably with Matt anyway.

(Puck really is lucky Santana likes it rough.)

... ... ...

She starts spending more nights at Matt's apartment, which is nice because it's not a dormitory. It's also nice because she doesn't have to sleep alone, and because he's wonderful and cares about her more than she thinks she deserves some days.

If sometimes his touch is too soft or his words too gentle, she tries not to think anything of it. She shouldn't be comparing him to anyone.

Least of all a boy she just barely started to get to know.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks one night, sliding into bed when she's laying on her side and staring at the wall. They're at her place, a rare night in her small bed instead of his double.

"I'm fine," she says, faking a smile. She knows he'll see right through it, but that he's too polite to press the issue too much. "Just nervous for that test, I guess."

He slips his arm around her waist and kisses the back of her shoulder. "You'll ace it. You always do."

She knows she will. It's not about the test.

It's Noah's birthday and she didn't call him, couldn't get up the courage.

"Goodnight," she says after switching off the light.

She stays awake even after she knows he's fallen asleep, slips away from him and opens her laptop. She writes seven drafts of an email before getting frustrated with herself and giving up on the idea all together.

"Hey," Matt mumbles from across the room sometime around 1:30. "Stop. You don't have to...Come to bed."

She walks back over and lays down, kisses the side of his mouth and tries to get some sleep and forget about that other thing.

... ... ...

Puck goes out to a club for his birthday with a few of his buddies from the team and gets totally drunk and doesn't spend a cent. It's kind of awesome. He doesn't have to worry about fake ID or anything because one of his friend's friend's girlfriends is a waitress there and she gets them in the back door.

The music kind of blows, since it's all that techno and dance pop and top 40 shit he hates, like Katy Perry and that Ke$ha chick every girl he knows wants to punch in the face. He kinda does, too. He does celebratory shots and has a fucking good time, and if he has his phone in his hand the whole night it's because he's getting a shit ton of texts from his friends, not because he's waiting for one in particular.

It doesn't come anyway, and when he gets into bed at 5:00 in the morning he's alone, and he's actually kind of okay with that, despite the fact that it's his birthday and he should totally be rewarded for being alive with some kind of awesome sex.

Whatever. He dozes off thinking about brown hair and tanned skin and that promise he made (and broke) to call her and get her off over the phone for her birthday. Maybe he was mostly joking at the time, but still.

He knows how Rachel feels about promises.

... ... ...

Rachel and Matt break up when he tells her he loves her and she can't say it back. There's really no coming back from something like that.

She's tried to fall for him. Maybe she did a little bit. It's just that she knows herself. She falls hard and fast and goes all in quickly. She should have known that when they were friends and she wasn't pining for something more, they were never going to work. All her relationships have been born from something just this side of obsession, if she's being honest. She's not counting Noah in that. She doesn't count him in a lot of things. She sets him off to the side, and she's not sure if that's because he was not really a boyfriend, or because there's a part of her that thinks (hopes?) that maybe they aren't really done with one another somehow.

That goes through her head, too, after Matt says the words, and she knows that's not a good thing.

So they break up and she cries for a few hours because she's really gotten used to having him around. It's nearly March break and she's going back to Lima, and they'd been toying with the idea of him coming with her to visit their friends. Well, the people they used to know. She doesn't really know if she has any true friends left there. Sure, she and Finn talk from time to time, and Quinn emails her every so often, but everyone else seems to have forgotten about her. The sad thing is that she's not surprised.

Matt comes by to get his things the day before she leaves. She's in the flannel pajama pants he always made fun of her for and an NYU sweatshirt that she thinks looks better on her than it probably does. She has her hair up and her bare feet on the floor, and even though she was expecting him, this is still very, very awkward. He tries to smile and steps through the door, and she closes it behind him.

She's packed up his things and they're in a reusable cotton bag she doesn't care if he keeps. There's not much there, just a couple tee shirts, a few DVDs and one of his football jerseys he insisted she keep to wear on game days. She doesn't want to keep it now.

"This is really awkward," she says out loud, looking to the floor. He's got his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah." They're quiet for a moment and he sighs and takes a step closer. "Look, is there any way...Can I...? Dammit, Rach, I just want to keep you."

He's making this harder than it needs to be. He's the one who said the words and called them over when she couldn't say them back.

But she's the one who can't fall in love with him, so maybe it's her fault, too.

"Matt." She tries a look of sympathy, but she doesn't know how well she pulls it off.

Just his name was as good as a no.

He picks up the bag off her bed and walks towards her and the door again. He holds her upper arm as he kisses her forehead, and she grabs his shirt and kisses him for real, because she wants to and it felt good when something similar happened during her last breakup.

"I do..." He lets out a breath and looks down at her. "I really...Just call me if you change your mind."

She nods and he leaves, and she knows they both know he won't be getting a phone call.

... ... ...

He's back in Lima, laying on his childhood bed and thinking about maybe getting up at some point. He got in late last night, had Finn pick him up from the airport and drop him at home so his mom didn't have to be out late. It's weird being back in her house and living by her crazy strict rules. (Jesus; one trip to juvie and a guy's privileges are totally revoked.) He slept until about 10:00 and he's been laying around for a good hour before his sister calls up the stairs and tells him to get his ass out of bed. He smiles. That's some language for an 11 year old, and he'd bitch at her for it but he knows exactly where and who she got it from.

But he doesn't answer to her, so he's not getting up yet.

"Noah!" she calls again after about five minutes.

"What?" he shouts back, annoyed. He's still not moving, just pissed off.

"Someone's here for you!"

"Send them up, then!"

It's not fucking rocket science. Kid's a certified genius (they had her tested last year) but she can't figure out the simple things.

Whoever's coming to see him at 11:00 on a Saturday, the first day he's back, is probably someone who knows him pretty well, so he doesn't bother getting up and putting any clothes on. It's probably Finn, so he doesn't really care about that, and to the best of his knowledge, Santana is the only other person who knows he's home yet, and if he's naked and she gets up the urge to give him a Happy March Break blowie, he'll be totally alright with that.

There's a gentle tap at his door and he grunts something before it opens.

Rachel's standing there in literally the hottest fucking thing he's ever seen her wear. (Okay, not true, but it's sexy as fuck.) She's got on these black leather boots he can't even...And a pair of tight jeans, a black sweater with a plunging neck, and her hair's all down and her makeup's all...

"Hey," he mumbles, still eyeing her.

"Hi." She smiles at him a little bit and pushes the door closed behind her. Fuck yeah. "Your sister is funny."

"'S'mental."

She ticks up her brow. "That's not a very nice thing to say." He shrugs his shoulder. They haven't talked since summer and she's talking about his manners or whatever? Stupid. Plus, he's naked and she's hot, and he's thinking those boots could be...Damn. He has _ideas_. "How are you?"

"Tired." She nods like she knows what he means. He wouldn't know it to look at her. Girl looks fucking amazing, even if she is sleep deprived. He knows her too well to think she actually is; her schedule's like, the most important thing to her next to her voice. Then he remembers that thing that's been eating at him since before Christmas. "How's Matt?"

He watches her face change, and she tucks her hair behind her ear and looks to the floor. "Heartbroken," she says quietly.

Two things he thinks: He's glad she's honest, and he's fucking happy. He leans up on his elbows and she walks closer. He knows she's probably already assumed he's naked, but that doesn't stop her from sitting down anyway.

"Yeah?" he asks. She shrugs her shoulder. "How're you?"

Shit, he figures he better ask. She smiles at him and fuck you if you wanna laugh because his heart does something weird. She's just hot.

"I'm okay," she says. "It wasn't...I was the one who ended things." Girl's basically ended every relationship she's ever been in. He's not surprised she ended this one, too. "I thought you might want to grab breakfast."

He shakes his head at her. The only thing he wants to eat is... "Lay down."

She actually blushes, which is pretty fucking adorable. "Noah."

"Just do it," he commands.

"Are you wearing pants?" She laughs a little and he has to grin at her.

"Nope."

She rolls her eyes and pulls her legs up onto the bed, and he settles back against his pillow. She says, "Over the covers only," and he can really work with that.

When he slips his arm around her and rests his hand on her stomach, she takes this deep breath that's so sexy he can hardly handle it and he realizes how much he's missed her. A fucking lot.

... ... ...

She knows better than to get involved with him right now. She's on the rebound and he's a player and she knows that hasn't stopped since he left Lima. If anything, he's stepped that behaviour up. No, she hasn't had any confirmation of that, but she thinks it's a safe assumption. Still, she slept in his bed with him for at least three hours and then they made plans to go out for breakfast the next morning and spent two more hours in a Denny's drinking coffee and talking, and she didn't move her foot away when he settled his alongside it.

By the time she gets his text message on Monday, she's already pretty much made her mind up about sleeping with him. He knows all about her relationship with Matt, because she told him at breakfast. He didn't give up too much information about his relationships at school, and she's thankful, and also pretty sure she doesn't want to know anyway. She could ask, but she knows hearing about him with other girls would just make her upset and probably jealous, so what's the point? She saw the hard line of his jaw when she was speaking about Matt and she knows it wasn't easy for him. It shows tremendous personal growth that he didn't stop her and tell her he didn't want to hear it.

Her fathers are at work and she's got the house to herself. She's in bed in her pajamas when she gets his message, smiles to herself before even reading it.

_What's up?_

She rolls her eyes. He can't even just ask her if she wants to do something. She knows from their summer together that this is his way of saying he wants to see her.

It takes him exactly 17 minutes to get across town. It takes her eight to put on makeup and probably another 10 to change, make her bed, and throw her things into her closet so her room is tidy.

_Come over in 30._

That's what she sends back to him.

40 minutes later, she's on her back beneath him with his hand pushing at the hem of the satin nightgown she's wearing. He groans against her skin when she tugs his earlobe with her teeth. She smiles to herself, knowing he always loved it when she did that, and he presses his hips against hers even more when she bends her leg to bring him closer. He teases at the leg of her panties, slides his finger just beneath the elastic and runs it basically everywhere but where she wants to be touched.

This is why they're so good together, physically. It's a battle for control, and they go back and forth with it until they give up and decide to work together. That part's fun, too, but the tug of war they generally engage in is one of the sexiest things ever, and she didn't realize how much she missed that until right now, when she's stroking him through his jeans and he trips up with what he's doing with his hand and bites at her neck a little bit.

"Fuck, you're so good," he tells her right before he kisses her.

That's like_ 'I miss you' _for him. She knows that.

And she tells him what she knows will make him crazy. (It also happens to be the truth.)

"You're the best." It's kind of breathless and it makes him buck against her, and she loves that so she angles her hips a little more and feels like she's two seconds away from begging when he stands up, pulls his shirt over his head and starts unbuckling his belt.

They're only home for a week and it's probably stupid to get caught up with him again, but she cannot find it in her to care.

... ... ...

He takes her to the airport and holds her hand so they can sneak between the doors of the gate like they did in the summer. He's not really a hand holding kind of guy, but he doesn't mind with her. She's got these really soft, cute hands and she likes to weave their fingers together sometimes (usually when they're in bed, so he doesn't stop her, like, ever). She's wearing those boots right now and he fucking knows it's because he told her he loves them. There's no chance of her letting him take her right here on the cracked pavement, but he might try anyway.

He shrugs off his hoodie and balls it up so she can use it as a pillow, then he uses her stomach as one when he lays down. He swears he's 16 again when she starts running her hand through his 'hawk and massaging his scalp with her fingertips. God, that feels good. He's never really had anyone do it for him before (his mom washing his hair totally doesn't count) and he doesn't really want anyone but her doing it. It's their _thing_ or whatever.

"Do you think this is a bad idea?" she asks.

"Naw," he says dismissively. "Abandoned means no one ever comes here."

She laughs a little bit and he hears it right under his ear, feels the way her stomach clenches. "I mean us, even though we are totally trespassing and could be prosecuted if anyone caught us here."

He rolls his eyes at her. Just 'cause her dad's a lawyer doesn't mean she has to drop that kind of knowledge on him.

Also; "Not a bad idea," he insists. He takes her hand this time, which surprises the hell out of him. "What else're we gonna do all break?"

She giggles and plays with his ear. (Fuck, that's totally his weakness; he loves that shit.) "Sex is definitely the best option."

He turns his head to look at her. "That's my motto."

He hasn't told her about the 10 or so girls he's been with since the start of school. It'd probably just piss her off for some reason and he doesn't want to.

"It's probably unhealthy."

"Fuck it," he says. "D'you care about that?"

"Not really," she admits. The way she says it is like she's surprised by it or something. Girl doesn't realize that she can enjoy sex without it being part of some big relationship or something.

Still, when he drops her off at home, he knows it's the last time he'll see her until whenever. It sucks and he hates it, kind of, so he kisses her and uses his hand to get her off right there in the driveway of her house and neither of them seems to care that her dads are right inside.

"You shouldn't have done that," she says, breath coming out in pants and forehead a little sweaty.

"How come?" he asks against her lips.

She sighs and presses her forehead against his. "Because now I want so, so much more," she admits.

He doesn't know if she means just the sex, or something else, and it's fucked, but he's kind of glad her flight is so early and she really has to get inside. Yeah, he'd like to bang her one lat time, but he really doesn't want to have that conversation with her. He just gathers the sweat along her forehead and wipes it on his jeans, kisses the corner of her mouth and tells her to have a safe trip back to New York. She tells him to score a touchdown for him and he doesn't have the heart to tell her football season ended forever ago. He waits until she's at the door before backing out of her driveway, and she's combing her fingers through the ends of her hair as he throws his truck into drive. She wiggles her fingers at him and he smiles back.

Fuck, he's gonna miss that girl.


	2. Chapter 2

His decision to stay in Montana for the summer and work full time at a sporting goods store has absolutely nothing to do with Finn telling him Rachel's staying in New York for the summer. It really doesn't. He had the job before he heard that news.

(He was going to quit so he could go home, but then he decides to accept the full time position they offer him and when one of the older guys on the team gives up his apartment, Puck talks to the landlord and secures it for himself.)

He texts her partway through the summer because he's bored and has a half-smoked joint in his hand and it seems like a really good idea when he's watching TV and one of those shampoo commercials comes on.

_You have pretty hair._

He's forgotten he even texted her until she sends something back, and he smiles and sinks back against his sofa and thinks about her.

_Thank you. It is one of my best features._

So yeah, naturally he starts thinking about her features and he totally loves her hair but her hair isn't even close to being the best, if you ask him.

And he's curious, so he has to know.

_What are you wearing?_

It's, like, midnight where he is so he knows it's later where she is, but she's up and replying so it doesn't really matter to him if she should be sleeping. Plus, the idea of her waking up from a sleep just so she can text with him is fucking sexy. So yeah, he needs to know what she's wearing.

_Very little. Why?_

Oh, shit. This is the best night ever.

He knows he should just call her, because phone sex is a bajillion times better than sexting, but he knows her pretty well, even if this is the first contact they've had since March. She'd get all shy and probably wouldn't be nearly as filthy as she's being in these texts. He can work with what he has. He doesn't even care that he has to put out the rest of that joint to free up a hand.

... ... ...

She has an amazing summer, spends it waiting tables at an upscale restaurant in the theater district. She's really good at her job, which would scare the hell out of her if she wasn't so good at everything else she does, too. She doesn't want to be one of those girls who can wait tables and do nothing else. But she has a 3.8 GPA and vocal skill she's envied for, so she's not worried about being a one trick pony.

And the tips are outstanding.

She has an apartment on the Upper West Side. It's nothing much; just 500 square feet and one little bedroom, but it's all she needs. She's on her own now with just a few friends in the city until classes start again, and she doesn't really entertain all that much anyway.

She knows it was wrong to engage in...that...with Noah when he texted her, but just seeing his name on her phone was enough to make her want him, so she decided to play along and ended up two seconds away from calling him when he sent her a message letting her know just how much he was enjoying this 'sexting' they were doing. She still blushes if she thinks about it. If she looks at that message (she just hasn't gotten around to deleting it yet) she can probably...Well, it has an effect on her she should be embarrassed by.

She tries not to be upset when he doesn't text her at all for the rest of the summer.

But then again, she doesn't text him either.

... ... ...

She hears about his mother's illness from her fathers. Part of her is hurt that Noah didn't call her himself, but she can understand that his priorities sometimes don't include her, and they certainly don't now. Apparently he's in the middle of football season and took a two week leave of absence from the team and school so he could be with his mother. The saving grace is that they caught the cancer early and the odds are good that she'll make a full recovery.

Rachel still cries all day and skips her classes because she looks like a mess and she's worrying herself sick. She loves Mrs. Puckerman. The woman has never been anything but wonderful to her, even when Noah wasn't. Rachel remembers being 12 and at temple and getting her period for the first time, and it was Mrs. Puckerman who took her hand and helped her through it and explained everything she needed to know. Rachel has never told Noah that (he definitely doesn't need to know).

And she's worried about him, too. She thinks of calling, but she doesn't know what she'd say to him if he'd even answer his phone. She knows him well enough to know that he just shuts down in situations like this. When she tried to call him after the baby's paternity came out, he wouldn't answer. She knows that had nothing to do with the fact that she was the one who broke the news and everything to do with the fact that he thinks he needs to be strong enough to get through everything on his own. Maybe he doesn't need _her_, but he needs _someone_.

Her fathers feed her information as they get it, but it still doesn't feel like she's close enough. She can't _do_ anything. She knows Noah is in Lima with his mother, and that's where she wants to be, too. It's silly, because they haven't spoken in forever and she's crazy to think her being there will do anything for him, but she's got a day off coming up, and she can afford to miss a few other classes, too, so she tells her fathers she wants to come home for a long weekend and they buy her a ticket.

She drops her things at her house and heads over to the Puckerman's. Her fathers don't even say anything about it, because they know why she's home and that she and Noah haven't always been 'just friends', no matter how many times she's used those words in the past.

When he answers the door he looks exhausted, and he lets out this little breath and looks at her for a moment. She could cry, just seeing him like this. Then he grabs her and wraps her up in his arms, and she's not sure who the hug is doing more for, her or him.

Hannah is in school and his mother is sleeping, so he literally pushes Rachel towards his room and onto his bed and lays on top of her, kisses her before even asking what she's doing or why she came. Actually, they haven't even spoken one word to one another. She still lets him push up her shirt a bit so his hand is on her bare side, and she slips hers into the hair at the back of his neck (she doesn't know when he shaved the mohawk and grew his hair a bit, but she likes it). The first word spoken is his name from her lips, and he sighs, presses his face against her neck, and just lays there for a moment until she runs her hand up and down his back a few times and he pulls away.

"So glad you're here," he says quietly, and she wasn't expecting it, so she pulls him back down to her so they're pressed right together. She's going to start crying if she thinks about that phrase too much, and that seems like a really selfish thing to do right now. "Fuck. Everything's..."

"I know," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."

She's not entirely sure how long they lay together like that or how many deep breaths he takes or how hard he's trying not to break down (she can tell) but after a while, she suggests they go out and get something to eat. She's sure he hasn't been out of the house in a while, and he needs to, for his own mental health.

"Hannah gets off the bus at 3:30."

"She has a key," Rachel says, running her hand through his hair.

"I shouldn't..."

"Noah," she says firmly, "she'll be fine. They'll both be okay here without you for a few hours." He takes a breath and looks at her, plays with the belt loop on her jeans as he seems to mull it over. "Are you really going to just keep me right here all day?"

He smirks at her for the first time in months and months, and his brow shoots up. "Can I?" She laughs and shakes her head, and he kisses her quickly. "Fine. Lemme tell mom."

They go to their Denny's and he tangles their legs together under the table as he tells her how everything's been going. The prognosis is good - great, even - but there's talk of a mastectomy and his mother has decisions to make and he feels helpless because he can't really do anything but help with Hannah and do things around the house. Rachel tries to assure him that's more than enough, and the fact that he came home at all is definitely helping his mother and probably makes her feel wonderful.

"How are you?" she asks. He stares at her darkly across the table and shakes his head.

"Don't fuckin' ask me that."

She has her answer, even if she doesn't really hear one.

... ... ...

She's in her room early Saturday morning when she hears his voice downstairs. She checks the clock and sees that it's not even 7:00, and immediately thinks something terrible has happened.

"Is Rachel home?" he asks, and that's how she knows he's distracted, because where else would she be at 7:00 on a Saturday morning, and since when does he ask things so politely?

She hears footsteps coming up the stairs and doesn't care that she's wearing flannel pajamas and her hair is a disaster and she's not wearing makeup. It's easy not to care about those things with him.

He pushes her door open without knocking, and closes it behind him. She's just laying awake, head against her pillows, and she watches him as he crosses the room, pulls back the covers and climbs into bed with her. He pushes her onto her side so he can spoon her from behind and says, "Shut up," when she says his name quietly.

He's scaring her, and she's not sure if he realizes just how badly. When he slips his hand under her shirt and cups her breast, it's crazy, but she's actually put at ease.

(He tells her later he just couldn't sleep at his house and needed to get away. She tries not to be too happy that he chose her as his escape, because she's the only one around anyway.)

... ... ...

He really doesn't want to take advantage of her or make her feel like she's only good to him for one thing. Neither is true. But fuck, he needs to get laid. Actually, he just really needs to have sex with Rachel, like, yesterday.

The thing with her is he didn't realize how much he needed her around until she was there, and he's been clinging to her like a pussy because everything's just better when she's there, and he doesn't want her to go back to New York, and he doesn't want to go back to Montana. He just wants to be with her somewhere. The first day she was at his house, he could have fucked her right there and felt amazing. God, he wanted to. Then last night he couldn't sleep at all and he waited and watched the clock until he thought it'd be safe to go to her house, and as soon as he was in bed with her he felt calm and _better_ and could actually _sleep_.

She kissed him awake, too, which was really awesome.

But yeah, if he doesn't get to fuck her before she leaves, he's going to pass out or something from all this stress and, you know, wanting her. So when she's laying across his bed with her feet dangling off the side, reading some text book or whatever, and his sister is in bed and his mom's sleeping again, he realizes it's now or never, and he really doesn't care if his whole family is home. Rachel's leaving tomorrow, and if he's reading her correctly (he's pretty good at that) she definitely won't say no if he tells her to take off her panties.

So he grabs her ankle, then slides his hand up to her calf and it makes her roll over so she's on her back, then he pulls her to the edge of the bed so he's standing between her legs and she's just looking up at him. She's smiling, and her hair's a fucking mess from moving around so much, and her shirt has ridden up, and her skirt is just barely touching her thighs (and he can see her panties at her hips because her skirt moved around). He doesn't fully know how to tell her how fuckable she looks right now, or how badly he's been wanting her.

"Baby," he says, and she grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down on top of her.

Apparently that worked.

He tries to make fun of her, laughs and opens his mouth, but she covers it with her hand and shakes her head. "Shut up," she says quietly. "Just...God, Noah, stop teasing me."

He thinks it's fucking hot that she considers anything that isn't sex with him to be 'teasing', and he makes sure she knows it, too.

... ... ...

He's home for a few days after she's gone and it fucking blows.

His mom's scheduled for surgery, and he texts Rachel to let her know the time and place and all that stuff Rachel no doubt things she needs to know. He doesn't really mind telling her, like, at all. She makes him promise to keep her posted on everything, and he says he will. Fuck, he loves that she's all concerned.

He sits with his mom on the couch the last night he's home, and doesn't pull his hand away when she takes it between her own. She just thanks him for coming home and says she loves him and she's proud of the man he's becoming, and there's something in his eye.

"You and Rachel?" she asks, looking at him from the corner of her eye.

Maybe this whole thing has made him appreciate his mom and his family a little more, because he doesn't tell her to shut up and mind her own business.

"Long story," he says.

She doesn't ask for details, and her smile is so big (the biggest he's seen from her in a long time) and he just kisses her cheek and tells her she's missing her show by talking so damn much.

... ... ...

He calls her to tell her his mom's surgery went really well and, "They got it all, baby," and he sounds so happy and relieved and adorable that she cries. They don't talk about much else - they don't talk about her at all - but she doesn't even care.


	3. Chapter 3

She's in the library one day, looking for a particularly hard to find piece of music, when a guy she's seen around a few times smiles at her from over top of his Jon Stewart book. She smiles back but doesn't put much stock into it, because she's got actual work to do and he's reading political satire, so she thinks their priorities are different, at least at the moment. She doesn't have time to flirt with attractive boys across quiet rooms. She's got a performance to prepare for, and she's stressing out because if she doesn't find this music she's going to have to go to her second song choice, and even though it's fantastic, she knows the first choice is a show-stopper.

He's staring at her, though, and she tries not to notice, but it's difficult to ignore it when someone that attractive is watching you. He's got this sandy blonde hair that's messy and a little swept to the side, and blue eyes and a little grin and, god, those dimples. Okay, she's intrigued.

"Can I help you with something?" she asks. "You've been watching me. Do I have something on my face?"

He sits back in his chair and smiles at her. "No. I just wondered how long it was going to take you to come over here."

If she's blushing she doesn't care.

He tells her (doesn't ask) he's buying her a cup of coffee, and she wishes she could say she's not interested but she thinks it'd be a lie.

His name is Reid and he's a senior majoring in music at Juilliard. He's a trumpet player and he's impressed by her and says she's beautiful.

She tells him about the music she's looking for and he tells her he has it. She's always believed in fate, but this is something else.

(She thinks about Noah only once, and just in passing. She hasn't heard from him in nearly a month and she won't put her life on hold for something that isn't really anything to begin with.)

... ... ...

He meets Riley after Santana calls him and tells him Rachel's dating some fucking tuba player or something.

He's pretty sure Santana's onto him, then, the thing he has with Rachel, whatever it is, but he's too busy being pissed off to do anything about it.

It's pretty fucked up, because it's not like he's celibate when Rachel's not around. He doesn't know why he expects her to be, and that isn't really fair. It's just that the idea of her sleeping with someone else, kissing someone else or something else touching her drives him to within an inch of picking a random fight just for someone to hit. She's never been his and he has no claim to her whatsoever, but they have something together, even if it's just a friendship and a line they shouldn't have crossed.

They haven't spoken in a while, though, and he doesn't exactly believe she's locked herself in her apartment and counting the days until she sees him again. Fuck, it'd be messed up if she was.

He just doesn't like to share. He never has and he probably never will, and none of that is a surprise to anyone.

Riley's super hot. She's a cheerleader for a rival school about an hour away, but she's, like, not your typical cheerleader. She does it because she's got a scholarship and she needs to keep it because she's pre-med and she needs to save all the money she can. She's funny as hell and doesn't take his bullshit, and the first time she sleeps at his place she tells him that if he tries anything she'll cut his hand off.

They end up fucking anyway 'cause she can't resist him, but whatever.

He starts dating her because he really does like her and she's awesome.

Holiday break is coming up and it's not like he's going to have any willing partners waiting for him in Lima again this year, so he thinks the timing on this relationship is pretty good.

... ... ...

The first time Rachel sees him on holiday break, she's sitting on his sofa drinking tea with his mother.

Strange? Not really. She truly did just come over to talk with Mrs. Puckerman. They ran into one another at the grocery store and Aviva insisted Rachel come over. Noah had nothing to do with it.

But then he walks in covered in snow and stops shaking out his jacket when he sees her sitting there on the couch.

"Hey," he says. She smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear and it's ridiculous that she's nervous. She's got a boyfriend, for crying out loud. She doesn't want to be affected by Noah like this.

"Rachel's just telling me all about the new man in her life," Aviva says. Rachel blushes and tries to decide if there's any bitterness to the tone his mother used. "He sounds lovely."

Noah scoffs. "Good for him." He passes the couch and heads for the stairs. "Gonna go call Riley."

Riley is a unisex name but the way he looks at her over his shoulder tells her it's not just a friend he's calling, and he said that just to hurt her, even if she shouldn't be hurting.

"Never mind him," Aviva says, placing her hand on Rachel's knee. "He's been like this since he came home."

That doesn't stop Rachel's heart from twisting in her chest, and it doesn't mean it doesn't sting when he comes downstairs with the phone held to his ear and she hears him call someone else 'baby' as he walks into the kitchen.

She wonders if they'll always feel like this about one another, whatever _this_ is.

... ... ...

His plan to ignore her all break is shot to hell when she shows up to Finn and Kurt's party dressed in this hot little black dress and gold shoes with her hair tumbling down her back and her eyes all smokey.

He's in serious trouble, 'cause he's half hard for her already and he's got a fucking girlfriend, but he still wants to bang Rachel. This is a problem. He ignores it, ignores her and heads to the kitchen to refill his glass of whiskey.

He watches her all night, when he's not texting back and forth with Riley. He sees Rachel looking at her phone once and smiling like there's some sort of secret there, and it's not fucking fair, how badly he wants in on it.

This night is going to mean a whole lot of trouble. He's never been able to resist temptation, especially when temptation is a girl with legs up to _here_ and perfect cleavage and a smile he wants to do dirty things to.

_Fuck_.

He knows he's had too much to drink, and she's had a few glasses of champagne, so it seems like a really good idea to walk up behind her in the living room (he doesn't give a damn who is around to witness this) and curve his hand around her hip to pull her back to him. And he figures he might as well cut right to the chase, because this isn't really the first time and he shouldn't have to work for it.

"I wanna fuck you so bad right now."

She tenses and elbows him gently in the side, but he doesn't move. No way is he gonna move.

"I have a boyfriend," she tells him. "And you have a girlfriend, I guess."

He just went from horny to pissed off in, like, a third of a second.

"Yeah, because you have a fucking boyfriend," he says harshly in her ear. She pushes him away and turns around, locks eyes with him and then quickly makes sure no one is watching them.

"That's not fair," she says, shaking her head. "That's not fair to her."

"You don't even know her." This whole thing is fucked, but he doesn't want her talking about Riley. At all.

"I know you're willing to cheat on her." She glances over up at him and he presses himself closer when he sees that no one else is paying attention.

He grins and makes sure she can feel how much this whole thing is turning him on, even if it shouldn't be. "You haven't said no."

He feels her take a deep breath. "You haven't asked me anything."

"What if I do?"

She drains her glass. He gets a whiff of her shampoo, then her perfume, and fuck, he doesn't even care about anything but getting inside her right now. When she turns around she looks nervous but still totally sexy. It's like she knows she's about to make a bad choice but she doesn't give a fuck because she's making it with him.

"Try, and find out," she says, eyes locked with his.

If anyone notices they leave the party together, no one says anything.

He takes her to her place and yeah, what's under the dress is still way hotter than the whole look she was rocking earlier.

"This is so bad," she says quietly as he moves slowly above her. (She loves it slow and it makes her fucking crazy at the same time. It's hot as hell.)

He kneads her thigh as she bends her knee, and pushes deeper. "'S'good to me." She moans and rolls her hips and he presses his forehead against hers. "So good, baby."

He watches her eyes flutter closed and feels her shudder under him. She's always loved it when he's called her that.

He leaves after, so her dads won't know she just cheated on her boyfriend with a guy she never legitimately dated.

He's got three missed calls from Riley when he bothers to check his phone. He doesn't even feel guilty, which is probably really fucked up.

... ... ...

She leaves for New York nearly a week early without saying goodbye to anyone but her fathers. She's got shame on her skin and hates him for doing this to her, making her into this girl. He shouldn't have done that and she shouldn't have let him. She thinks that if he respected her at all, he would have kept his distance, or at least stuck to small talk like everyone else did with her.

Reid brings Chinese over when she calls him and tells him she's back in New York. She tells him she's too tired from travel to be with him. He seems a little annoyed with her saying no, but she changes the subject quickly and tells him about the people she spent time with on her break. She just doesn't tell him she was with anyone else.

That part, she doesn't tell him until the second week of January, when she hears that Noah and his girlfriend are making plans to visit Finn and Brittany for March Break.

Reid is understandably not happy, tells her he thought he knew her better than that and he can't believe she'd do that.

To be honest, she can't believe it either.

He tells her to leave his apartment, says it harshly and curls his hand around the edge of the table, and she can't even really fathom how he's feeling and knows it's not her place to ask, so she grabs her purse and leaves without another word, mostly because 'goodbye' seems really lame or really poetic, and she doesn't want to be either.

She shouldn't have told him. She should have just kept it to herself. They were so happy together and he was so good to her, and she hates Noah for having a hand in breaking them up. No, that's not really fair, since she was a willing party and she had the chance to say no and didn't take it.

It's also not fair to be alone just because she can't be with him. (Or because she can't not be with him.)

... ... ...

He doesn't say shit to Riley about Rachel because there's no need to ruin a good thing just because he had a one night stand (he's trying to convince himself that's all it was) with a girl he kind of knows.

He's such a fucking liar. It's not right and he feels like a bastard, but he likes Riley enough not to want to lose her. He knows for a fact she'd be out the door really fucking fast if she knew he'd fucked around on her. She doesn't know anything about Rachel. Shit, it took him a month to tell her about Quinn and the baby. She doesn't need to know about this fucked up thing he has with Rachel, whatever it is.

Anyway, he wouldn't have fucked her that night if she hadn't been wearing that painted on dress and eyeing him across the room. It's totally her fault.

Not at all. Fuck it, though. He's gotten good at blaming her for shit.

By the time March Break comes around and he takes Riley home to meet his mom and then to Finn and Brittany's, things are really, really good between them. They're comfortable together and she puts him in his place when he needs it. She's awesome with his mom and sister, too. She says all the right things and smiles and helps in the kitchen and talks to Hannah about wanting to be a doctor.

So he's pretty fucking confused as to why his mom isn't, like, freaking out and buying wedding magazines or something. He knows, though, that it's not because he's not getting married any time soon.

She mentions "Rachel's fathers" in conversation and he gives her a look. Riley doesn't even flinch and his mom shakes her head at him because she knows he hasn't divulged info about that relationship.

But shit. What the hell would he even say?

... ... ...

Rachel's got a new summer job at a different restaurant with more flexible hours so she can perform in the show she auditioned for and got a small supporting role in. It's basically a chorus part (she has a half a line before she gets interrupted by the female lead) and it pays practically nothing, but it's her first role in New York City and she's taking it seriously.

Her fathers are upset that she's staying in the city for the summer again, but she has no reason to go back to Lima. She doesn't want to and she makes stupid choices when she's there. Noah, she's decided, brings out a terrible side to her, a side that cheats, and she doesn't want to do that anymore.

Not since Reid forgave her.

She didn't ask him to, didn't tell him she needed him (she doesn't) or wanted him back. He just came to her one night after they'd been apart nearly four months and told her he missed her and overreacted and said he'd like to try again. He asked if she'd be interested and they vowed to take it slow this time (they moved too quickly last time and both admitted it). Now she's got a drawer full of things at his place, and sleeps in his Juilliard tee shirts and he usually walks her home from work or rehearsals, because he's just teaching private music lessons for the summer and playing in a jazz trio he's been in forever.

It's kind of perfect. They spend their evenings drinking wine and listening to Davis and Coltrane and Parker and Holiday. They talk about music and he doesn't speak to her condescendingly when he needs to explain something to her that she doesn't know. Admittedly, jazz has never been her forte.

But for an audition she goes on, he suggests a Sarah Vaughan song and helps her with her phrasing and she gets two call backs before the director tells her she's perfect, just a little too young. For Off-Off-Broadway before she's even graduated school, that's about as good as a yes.

She takes the stage one night with Reid and they sing Let's Call The Whole Thing Off and the crowd laughs and claps and she hugs him after because he's decidedly _not_ a singer, but it's _fun_.

This is an adult relationship, and she likes it.

He tells her he loves her when they're in bed on the hottest night of the summer. She's wearing a tank top and panties and he's in his boxers and they aren't touching because they just can't bear to. He just blurts it out after the lights are off and she kisses his cheek and says the words because she's starting to think they're true and she refuses to lose another man as a result of not saying them back.

It's Matt she thinks of in that moment, not Noah, and she doesn't even realize that until the next morning, when Reid has left her in his bed with a note and a key on the table saying he'll see her after his lesson.

... ... ...

He's a fuck up. It's not a secret that he doesn't know how to do much right. That's a little self-deprecating and not totally true, but when it comes to women, he's good at fucking, making them get in over their heads (whether he wants them to or not) and not much else.

Keeping a girl, he totally hasn't mastered yet. Probably because he hasn't had a lot of practice and hasn't really wanted to, save for a couple times.

He and Riley have been fighting too much. It's not like it's his fault, really, they just get at one another for everyfuckingthing and he's getting tired of it. She gets pissed one night and starts crying, and when she runs to his bedroom, he gives her three minutes before he goes in and tries to talk to her. She's laying face down on the bed with her head on her arms as she cries.

"Jesus. You're worse than Rachel."

He doesn't even think before he says it, and she turns over, glares at him, and asks who the fuck Rachel is.

So yeah, that fight? That's the last one they have.

... ... ...

Rachel is quite literally straddling her boyfriend and taking off her shirt one night when her cell phone rings on the bedside table. Normally she'd ignore it, but it's an offensive rap song she most definitely didn't set as her ringer. (He set it as the ringtone for himself back during that first summer and she never changed it.)

Reid is not happy that she answers.

"Hello?"

"Rach."

Oh, god. He's drunk. He's drunk and calling her after she split almost a year ago. They haven't spoken since and this is the first time, and her boyfriend is beneath her and wondering who the hell she's talking to.

"Hi," she says quietly. Reid slides his hand up her thigh, but she pushes it away and moves off him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Just thinkin' 'bout you," Noah says.

"What are you doing? Where are you?" she asks, panicking because she hates it when people drink too much, and there's nothing she can do right now other than ask him questions and make sure he's home safe.

"Home. Bed," he says. "Home in bed thinking about you."

Oh, god. Reid kisses the back of her shoulder and she shrugs him off. She really hates that he does that, tries to kiss her and distract her when she's on the phone. He does it when she talks to her fathers, too, and it annoys her more than it should. His fingers dig into her hip enough that it hurts, and she glares at him over her shoulder and gets up, crosses the room and stands by the window.

"That's...Why?"

"Riley fuckin' left. She's kind of a bitch."

As much as it hurts her to know his longest relationship wasn't with her (it's irrational, she knows) she's happy that girl is out of his life now.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says, knowing he won't pick up on just how much she doesn't mean it.

"Who is it?" Reid asks from the bed, where he's now sitting right at the edge with his hands in fists on his thighs.

"Who the fuck?" Noah shouts. She pulls the phone from her ear. "Don't even...You've got another boyfriend?"

"The same boyfriend," she says, turning her back on Reid so she can look out the window. "Noah, Why are you calling?"

She hears a scoff behind her and realizes her mistake. She shouldn't have said the name. She shouldn't have answered the phone at all, but she really shouldn't have said the name. Reid gets up and walks up to her, and she turns around just in time for him to grab the wrist of her free arm. He goes for the phone, but she turns her body so he can't take it. It makes her wrist twist in his tight hold, which hurts enough to make her whimper.

"Rachel," Reid says darkly.

"Rach."

"Stop!" she shouts, and she doesn't know who she's talking to. Reid is right in front of her now, looking down at her, and she can hear Noah breathing through the line.

"Baby, if he fuckin' touches you, I'll kill him," Noah says, and she actually believes him.

The very scary thing is that the way Reid is looking at her and has her wrist in his grip is making her really, really uncomfortable. He's a very laid back guy and he looks angrier than she's ever seen him. She doesn't think she's ever been afraid of a boyfriend before, but fear is definitely what she's feeling. She doesn't want to back down, because she won't let herself be bossed around by a man, but she can see how easy it would be to let oneself be controlled.

And this all goes through her head in a matter of seconds.

"Hang up the phone," he says to her.

"Rachel," Noah says.

"No," she answers, eyes locked with Reid's. She won't be bullied. She knows he's obviously much bigger than her and he could take charge here and...Well, it could be very bad. "Let go of me."

"_Rachel_," Noah repeats, more urgently.

"It's fine," she insists, bringing the phone closer to her mouth. "He's just leaving."

She's picking the man she hasn't spoken to in nearly a year over the one who's been amazing to her nearly as long (cumulatively). All she needed was one display of how Reid can act and she doesn't want to be with him anymore, even if her heart is screaming at her not to make a snap judgment. Noah is still on the phone, waiting, she knows, for some kind of resolution to this situation. She watches Reid back away from her and shake his head.

"You're...This is over," he says to her. "I thought you were done with him." She doesn't know what to say, so she just stays where she is and watches helplessly as he heads for her bedroom door. "I should have known you're still the same slut who fucked him in the first place."

She gasps and tears fill her eyes. No one's ever called her that, not really, and it hurts more than she thinks it should, more than she's going to admit. The front door slams and she realizes he's still got a key, so she rushes through the apartment and slides the chain across, then the deadbolt and the fifth lock at the top of the door she needs a chair to reach.

"Rach?"

"Hi," she says quickly, wiping her eyes. "I'm here."

"_Fuck_. You okay?" he asks. He sounds a million times more sober now than he did before.

"Yes. I'm..." She can't believe she's going to say this; "Thank you."

If Noah hadn't called, she wouldn't have seen that side of Reid, and the relationship wouldn't have ended, and who knows what would have happened next time Reid got angry? It's ridiculous that this all happened, and she's having a hard time comprehending it or calming down at all.

"Don't go," she pleads, laying down on her bed again. "Don't hang up yet."

She's sure he just called to bitch at her for somehow having a hand in her breakup. He ends up staying on the phone with her all night, talking about nothing and sometimes not talking at all, because she's a little rattled and she doesn't want to be alone.

Right now, he's all she has.

... ... ...

He calls her every couple weeks until holiday break, mostly because he's actually fucking scared that this Reid asshole is going to touch her again.

She told him about her wrist and the bruises that were there and he saw red and almost got on a plane to New York City to kick some ass. No one touches a woman that way and gets away with it. _No_ one. It's not okay and he likes to check up on her and make sure she's not doing something stupid like getting back with the asshole.

So when she's crying one day when he calls? Yeah, his heart dies or something. It's fucked.

"What?"

"My dads are going to Paris for the holidays," she manages.

And if her dad's are going...

"So you're going, too?" he asks.

He doesn't want to be pissed about it, it's just that at some point they're going to have to at least try to see if whatever the hell this is could be more.

... ... ...

When she gets back from Paris (and it was fabulous, even if she didn't necessarily want to go at first) she calls Noah and they talk about their breaks. He's still in Lima for another few days and she's in New York to ring in the new year, even if she's going to do it alone from her couch with a mini bottle of champagne and her pajamas on. He makes fun of her, but when she asks him if he just maybe wishes he could do the same thing, he says, "Yeah, whatever," all quietly and she knows he'd like to be sitting on that couch with her.

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes they have to sort out whatever it is they are. They've never really been friends, and she thinks if they have any hope in hell of being anything at all, they need to at least attempt that first. Yes, that's what they've been doing for the last two months, but she knows why. They both thought they could keep up the friendly thing until they were in the same place at the same time and then they could do what they seemed to always do.

They could sleep together and act like some kind of secret couple without admitting they were a couple at all.

Her holiday plans obviously changed all that, but she doesn't want them to stop this, the regular contact and the friendship thing. It's ridiculous for her to ask him to not be with anyone else, and she's not going to do that. She doesn't want him to do that to her, either.

She calls him one night and it's late, and even though he tells her he's up, she knows he's in bed and half asleep.

"Hey," she says after they've covered the basics, like how his flight back to Montana was and how he's doing, etc.

"Hmm."

"Will you be my friend?" He gives a sleepy laugh in response. "I'm serious."

"What am I now?" he asks, genuinely confused.

"I'm not even sure. I want you to be my friend," she says firmly, and she hears him grunt his acquiescence. "Just friends."

"Oh," he says slowly. "You mean, like...no sex friends?"

She giggles and nods her head even if he can't see her. "Yes. That kind."

"But..." He's practically pouting and definitely caught off guard. "But we're good as sex friends."

"We haven't had sex in over a year, and the last time shouldn't have happened."

"Whatever," he mumbles. "Why you gotta change everything on me?"

She laughs a little. "I'm not changing it. I just think that...I've never had a lot of friends, Noah, and I feel you should be mine."

(She likes the way that sounds, though, him being hers.)

The line is quiet for too long and she starts doubting how good an idea this whole thing is. Maybe they work because they never talk about what they are or what they're going to do. Maybe the only reason he's been talking to her over these last couple months is because he wants her to be willing and waiting for him in Lima during March Break.

"Fine," he says after a moment. "I'll be your stupid friend."

"You could try to sound a little enthusiastic about it," she giggles.

"'I don't do enthusiastic this late."

"Why did you answer, then?" she asks, pulling the covers up over herself a little more. She feels like she's smiling too big, but there's no one there to see it, so she doesn't stop.

"'Cause 's'you."

They hang up shortly after that and she falls asleep easier than she has since returning from Paris.

... ... ...

So, he's 'friends' with Rachel Berry, and 15 year old him probably wants to kick his ass, but 15 year old him was also a huge fucking douchebag, so 21 year old him doesn't really give a fuck what 15 year old him has to say about shit.

Whatever. It's cool, 'cause if there's anything he knows about Rachel, it's that if she's on your side, she's got your back until you hurt her. If you don't hurt her, she'll be loyal to you forever, and to be honest, he hasn't had anyone like that. Ever. Other than his mom and sister who love him unconditionally (or whatever), there's never been anyone in his corner no matter what. Finn, sort of, but they were never the same and Puck can't really say he blames Finn for pulling away and not trusting quite so quickly after all that Quinn stuff. (Again, young him was a fucking 'tard.)

So yeah, that whole logic is basically what makes him, like, promise himself he's not going to fuck up this friendship with Rachel.

The other thing he's not fucking? _Rachel_.

Which, okay, he gets. It's not even that big a deal, since they see one another, like, once a year or whatever, but her closing the door on that is pretty fucking serious. It's not even like she's just all, "Oh, I think we should..." She basically told him that they were going to be friends and he was supposed to keep his dick to himself.

So he's not going to be fucking Rachel. Shame, really, since they're so good together.

It's cool, though, that things are so good between them, because he gets to call her whenever he wants to and they talk pretty candidly about things. He didn't tell her, of course, about the girl he met last week and brought back to his place. That's just not vital information to share with her. But he talks to her about school and stuff, and how his mom's doing.

Something he never knew about Rachel? Girl's got a lot of shit going on in her head. She's got a million insecurities that aren't even rational, because she's incredible, and she worries about everyfuckingthing and it's totally ridiculous. He actually has to, like, talk her down off the ledge when one of the lions goes missing from some zoo in New Jersey, 'cause she's legit crying to him on the phone, worried someone is going to shoot the thing or treat it badly.

It's a fucking _lion_, and she's worried about it, not the people it'll maim.

And like right now, he's just laying on his living room floor because it feels good for his back and he likes to lay like this when he has a lot of reading to do, and she's talking to him about her finals and how worried she is that she's going to fail.

"Hold up," he says, totally interrupting her after that stupid statement. "You've never fucking failed anything ever. Why would you fail now?"

"It's hard!"

"You're stupid. You're, like, the smartest person I know."

She laughs into the phone and he smiles. "That doesn't make sense."

"Whatever. You'll be fine if you stop freaking the fuck out and study instead," he tells her seriously. "If you talk to me about failing anything ever again, I'm gonna come up there and deal with you myself."

That sounds way hotter than he means it to.

And that's not allowed. Apparently.


	4. Chapter 4

"You should come see me," she says one night when they're talking. She mostly says it just to see what his reaction will be, not because she thinks he'll actually buy a ticket and travel to New York.

"Fuck that. You should come see me."

She actually buys a ticket and travels to Montana.

She's crazy, maybe, because their friendship has been working wonderfully the last little while, since before Christmas. It's summer now and this is definitely the best they've ever been. The thing is, they're probably working so well because they haven't seen one another.

She hates that.

It's just that when they're together, they can't seem to keep their clothes on. Their friendship is just that when they can talk on the phone regularly like normal people. Put them in front of one another and she can't promise the whole thing won't go up in smoke.

Truthfully, maybe that's why she gets on the plane; she needs to know if this friendship will work, or if she's just fooling herself.

He's half asleep on a chair in the airport when she gets off the plane and makes it through the terminal, and she'd be mad at him for it, but honestly, it's just so _him_ that she really can't think of how else she'd want it. She's overcome by the urge to kiss him, because he looks absolutely incredible and she hasn't seen or kissed him in over a year and a half, and that seems like far, far too long to go without touching those lips. Instead, she crosses her arms and kicks his shoe and he jolts awake and stares up at her through bleary eyes. Then he's out of his seat and has his arms around her and she says something about that being a more appropriate greeting.

He drives around for a while, shows her Missoula and some of his favourite places. She gets hungry and bats her lashes at him across the console, asking if he might want to stop for dinner. He laughs and tells her he can always eat and she knows that. They stop at a little bar and he orders her a drink far too strong for her, but tells her that if she can't drink whiskey she can't be his friend. One of his buddies from school walks in and joins them and won't stop staring at her, and she can tell Noah gets a little possessive and she absolutely hates how much she loves it.

"I don't _belong_ to you, you know," she says after, when they're walking to the car. Okay, maybe she had two of those strong drinks and she's a little tipsy.

Tipsy Rachel makes questionable choices, and she doesn't want him to be one of them. Again.

He slings his arm around her shoulders as they walk, and gives her this little smirk that should not be sexy. "Yeah, you do."

She'd argue, but at least eight tenths of her thinks he might be right.

... ... ...

He makes her sleep in his bed and he sets himself up on the couch. Yeah, maybe they should be able to share a bed without, you know, him falling into her, but he knows himself well enough that if he's laying there next to her and she's wearing those cute little pajamas (or anything...or nothing) he'll do something that's against all her rules and things'll get fucked up. So he stays on the couch and it's really not that bad, because in the mornings, she's awake before him and he seems to wake up only when she brings him his cup of coffee.

Or, you know, when she's making coffee and he can see her from where he's laying and he watches her move around his place. That only happens twice, but it's alright.

Having her around is way more awesome than it should be, really. Sure, they're friends and it's just really great to see her, but she's funny and cute and she charms the hell out of his friends when they come over to watch a baseball game. She wants to see everything and talk about even more than that, and they stay up until 4:00 a.m. one night drinking SoCo on his living room floor and listening to music she put on her iPod because she swears he'll love it.

They end up on laying on the floor with his arms around her and her half on top of him, and it'd be so, so easy to take advantage of this and do what he wants to do. But then he hears her voice in his head saying she's never had many friends and he thinks if they're going to happen, they're going to happen when they're not living states and thousands of miles apart, and they probably deserve more from one another than just having sex when they happen to be in the same place at the same time.

"You're warm," she says, and he wants to make fun of her, because it's July and everything's warm.

"Hmm."

She pushes her leg up over his hip more and her fingertips dig into his ribs. He can see this going somewhere, and maybe she can't, but fuck, he doesn't have all the self-restraint in the world and she knows that.

So is he gonna stop her? No.

After a few minutes, when her hand starts trailing up and down his side and getting closer and closer to his nipple, she pushes herself away abruptly and sits up, looking down at him with her hand over her mouth.

"What?" he asks, brow furrowed.

"We just...Almost..."

He actually laughs. "_Almost_? That wasn't almost anything. Fuck."

"Noah, I happen to take this friendship very seriously, and inappropriate touching is..."

"Rachel." He tilts his head at her as he leans up on his elbows. "That wasn't inappropriate. You know, you'd enjoy shit more if you just stopped fucking thinking about it all the time."

He isn't exactly sure that makes a whole lot of sense, but she doesn't say anything about it. Instead, she straddles him and takes his face in her hands. She kisses him slowly, all light presses of her lips to his that are teasing the fuck out of him until she pushes her tongue past his lips.

Wait. What?

"This is me not thinking," she says breathlessly, looking straight at him. "This is what happens when I don't think."

He grins and his hands find her ass. "You should never think, ever."

So they make out a bit. Totally PG, mostly, even if she is grinding on him and he's hard as hell and he knows she can feel that. (Hello, obviously.) She makes these sexy as hell noises and he wishes she was wearing a skirt because he'd be able to feel her more and maybe sneak a hand where up until now she hasn't thought it belonged. Fuck it. He goes for it. She's got her tongue in his mouth and a fistful of his shirt in her hand, so he's pretty sure unbuttoning her jeans is totally fair play.

But she pulls away and sits back on his thighs and fuck, that wasn't supposed to happen.

He knows what's going on and she's probably right to stop things, so he lays his head back and closes his eyes. Maybe the back of his head hits the hardwood a little roughly, but he doesn't care because at least the pain takes the focus on the fact that she's not going to do a damn thing about the situation in his pants right now.

She's still sitting on top of him.

"That was stupid," she says. He opens his eyes just in time to see her button her jeans again.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"I kissed you."

"Yeah."

She laughs softly and puts her hands on his stomach, fists his shirt there. (Which, for the record? Not helping.)

"We're really dumb," she says, and he smiles at her. "We can't control ourselves. We're like teenagers."

He scoffs. "When we were teenagers you wouldn't even let me touch you."

"You should have been nicer to me," she says, grinning slyly and raising one brow.

Fuck, she's hot when she's been drinking.

He doesn't know what to say to that, though, because she's probably right. She probably would have let him get his hands all on her if he hadn't hit her with a bunch of slushies before they dated. Oh well. Can't do anything about it now, especially when she won't even let him properly make up for lost time.

"Hey, if you're not gonna fuck me, you gotta get off me," he says bluntly. It's just kind of how he rolls, and she knows that. She doesn't move, though. "Seriously."

"I should probably...go to bed," she says biting her bottom lip. He nods at her. "Alone." See, that's a matter of opinion and he doesn't seem to agree, but he nods again and she moves so she's sitting on her knees next to him again. "Sorry."

He sees her glance to the general area below his belt and he thinks she's nice for apologizing. She'd be nicer if she did something about it, but he won't actually say that to her right now.

She stands and gathers her hair in her hands, which is so fucking hot he might die, and then she walks back to his bedroom he watches the swing of her hips and he can almost see how hard it is for her not to turn around and look at him.

So he lays on the floor and thinks about her in his bed doing what he's doing right now.

This friendship is, like, the hardest thing he's ever done.

... ... ...

She worries her last two days with him will be awkward, but it's like nothing ever happened. Actually, it's not all that surprising. They've done way more in the past than just kiss a little bit, so maybe it's not so strange that when she wakes up in the morning they're back to being just friends, just like she wants them to be.

It's just that she's ridiculously tense, because she refused to do anything alone in his bed. He looks at her like he knows, and she rolls her eyes at him, which basically gives her away. She stops caring about that when she realizes they basically tell one another everything anyway.

Also, she hasn't missed how laid back and relaxed he is, so she knows he had no trouble giving in and doing what she couldn't. That hardly seems fair, but she can't even say anything about it.

... ... ...

He takes her to the airport and pretends to be all cool about her leaving and stuff, but it sucks.

Like...It's just...

It sucks.

... ... ...

"I'm home," she says when she calls him from her apartment after arriving in New York. She's exhausted from travel and just wants to strip down to her underwear and fall into bed.

"No, you're in New York," he says, and the way he says it lets her know he's correcting her, not just stating things.

She really hates him for the rest of the day, for making her think so hard about what home is and where hers is and if he has anything to do with it.

... ... ...

He gets all confused when Finn and Brittany get engaged, because he should probably want that for himself, right? Like, he's old enough that he should start thinking about shit like getting married and settling down. Fuck it, though. He's still young and Finn's a freak and Brittany likes shiny things, so that probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're engaged.

Still, after he's hung up with Rachel and the two of them have talked about their friends getting hitched, he starts to think about things. Five beers into the evening, he switches to hard liquor after realizing there's only, like, one person he knows in the world he thinks he could tolerate for anything close to 'forever'.

... ... ...

He calls her one night in the middle of her...

Well...

Her alone time. Of course, she can't say anything to him about it, even though she's a grown woman and having a healthy sexual appetite is completely normal, as is the way in which she's choosing to exercise that...

Whatever.

She doesn't answer, obviously, and he's mad when she calls him back, because they know one another's schedules and don't ignore one another's calls. He asks what she was doing, and she says, "Nothing," but he guesses (she doesn't know how he does that, but she thinks it has something to do with the fact that his mind is constantly on sex) and then makes fun of her. He won't stop until she tells him who or what she was thinking of, and it's not fair, because honestly, it's just making her think about it again.

"Is it me?" he asks after she refuses the third or fourth time. "It's me, isn't it?"

She stays quiet because she thinks that's probably the answer to a lot of questions.

... ... ...

He's a dude and he has needs. One of those needs is sex. So he has some with this girl in one of his classes. It's the first time in forever that he doesn't answer the phone when Rachel calls. But really, he's kinda busy and his hands are otherwise occupied.

He doesn't know why Rachel's calling him at 2:30 in the morning, and he knows it's really not normal to worry about it when he's got another girl in his bed. It's nearly 4:00 when he calls Rachel back, but she answers anyway.

She's stressing out and nervous about an audition she's going on, and she can't sleep.

He sits at the end of his bed and quietly talks her through it while his hookup sleeps in his bed.

"What were you doing?" Rachel asks. He can tell by the tone of her voice that she already knows, and he doesn't really want to confirm it to her.

"Nothing," he says.

He gets this sick feeling in his stomach when he thinks about her doing_ 'nothing' _with someone else. She totally could be and maybe she's just not telling him or something. But Rachel tends to tell him everything. He's the one who tries to keep things to himself, even if she always figures them out anyway.

At the end of their conversation, she hesitates where she's supposed to say goodbye.

"Is she pretty?" she asks, soft and quiet like she isn't sure she wants to know.

He turns and looks over his shoulder at the blonde laying between his sheets. He doesn't want to lie to Rachel. "Yeah," he answers. He doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't tell her that if she were anywhere near him, he'd pick her over anyone else in a heartbeat.

... ... ...

She 'loses' her phone for a few days after that, mostly so she won't have to talk to him. Whether he apologizes or not, she doesn't want to hear it. If he does, it's like he's admitting there's something more here between them and he's tampering with it by being with other people. If he doesn't, he's ignoring what's there between them and that might break some little corner of her heart.

All these little corners keep getting broken off and she doesn't know if she can risk any more.

When she finally answers, he asks her what the hell her problem is. He's angry and annoyed, and when she asks why, he just says, "Well, fuck, Rach. I kinda like to know you aren't dead in a ditch or something!"

She giggles and tells him there aren't many ditches in New York, and he sighs (probably rolls his eyes, too) and everything goes back to normal.

... ... ...

"What's with Rachel these days?" Finn asks during one of their rare conversations. Texts are more their thing, but Finn calls every now and again just to talk.

About Rachel, apparently.

(Yeah, it still bugs Puck, but there's nothing really he can do about it.)

"What do you mean?" It's not like he thinks there's something going on with her that she hasn't told him, it's just...

Well, fuck. What if there is?

"I dunno. She usually calls me once a month or something and talks my face off. I haven't heard from her in a while."

So, yeah. Puck isn't really sure why Finn's asking him this, because as far as everyone knows, he and Rachel, like, never talk, ever. Unless...

"D'she tell you about us?" he asks.

"_You_?" Finn sounds confused and like maybe he's missed a whole lot of shit (he definitely is and he definitely has).

"Whatever. She's fine. She's good."

"What about you?" Finn asks when it's clear Puck's not giving him anything.

"I'm good, too," Puck says, grinning to himself for being such a dick sometimes.

But fuck. Are they a couple of chicks? They don't need to talk about this shit, do they? Besides, it's been a few years of this whatever with Rachel and Finn's only just noticing. Pretty sure it's not gonna kill him not to know.

"Yeah, but are you guys, like, good _together_?"

Fucking Finn.

"Shut up. No. We're friends, you ass." Finn starts laughing really hard and Puck is getting pretty pissed at this entire fucking conversation. Did the guy just call to be a dick? 'Cause that shit's not appreciated. "_What_?"

"Nothing!" Finn manages, still laughing. "It's just...Yeah, I mean...I was friends with Rachel once, too."

Puck thinks about that for a second, then thinks about her and how, yeah, she really can't be 'friends' with dudes and she never has been.

_Fuck_.

"Fuck you."

He hangs up and he knows Finn calls Rachel and fucking blabs to her like some kind of chick, 'cause when she calls him that night she sounds all cute and like she has a smile on her face the whole time, and right before she hangs up she says, "Goodnight, friend," and he wants to punch Finn in the stupid mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

She's made some incredibly stupid choices in her life. Incredibly stupid. Like when she was 10 and decided she hated her body and barely ate anything for a week. A trip to the emergency room and her fathers considering putting her under psychiatric evaluation changed her mind and ended her very brief spell of what she hates to ever refer to as anorexia. Or when she was 12 and performing at a local talent show and put ex-lax in her competitor's yogurt. (She won the competition, but still.) Or going after another (pregnant) girl's boyfriend. Sending an exchange student to a crack house. Telling Mr. Schue she overheard racial slurs backstage at Regionals senior year and getting one of the top choirs disqualified. (She actually did hear them, but sometimes she wishes she'd kept the competition stiff to see if New Directions were really as good as she thought they were.)

Anyway, bad choices are, unfortunately, kind of her forte.

She's not sure where this one ranks.

It starts simply, as a flirtation and nothing more. Her professor calls her adorable one day when he sees her highlighters in her bag, organized prismatically. She blushes, because he's really gorgeous and he's only about 30, at most. Then she compliments him on one if his ties and he gives her a look she loves way more than she should. She shows up for office hours legitimately needing help with an assignment. He gives her an extension when she explains that she's doing a two week run in a small dinner theater show. She hasn't told anyone that, because she's not getting paid and it's really nothing anyway.

He shows up alone and claps the loudest for her solos.

"You came," she says after, when she's still in her stage clothes and makeup. It sounds silly to her ears, but he gives her a little smile and tucks his hand into the pocket of his grey dress pants. He always wears jeans. Thinking he may have dressed up for her makes her heart race in a way it hasn't with regards to any man, other than just that other one, in a very long time.

"You're amazing," he responds, both an explanation and an observation. "I didn't realize."

"I'm a music major," she laughs.

"So was I," he reminds her. "I can't sing to save myself."

She doesn't mean to sound as flirtatious as she does when she says, "I'm sure there are other things you do well to make up for it," but it happens and he looks at her, his brown eyes almost black.

"Let me walk you home."

She does.

He doesn't ask to come in, or indicate this was anything other than an innocent meeting and he's just ensuring she gets home safely. She can't seem to make the butterflies in her stomach understand that, however. It's not her fault, okay? He's got hair like Patrick Dempsey and pianist's hands and these dark, chocolate brown eyes. He's tall, too, almost as tall as Finn, she thinks, and she finds she really likes the way she has to look up to see his face.

This is really stupid.

"Why did you come tonight?" she asks, and she'd say his first name if she didn't think that would be really odd.

He steps towards her and she steps back until the bricks of her apartment complex are against her back. He doesn't touch her or press himself against her, but this is almost better than that, the anticipation of what's going to happen next.

"Rachel."

He says it like she should know the answer to her own question.

"Dan," she says back, like she does know but she's been avoiding it.

For a moment, she thinks calling him by his name has bothered him or made him realize what he's doing, but then she peers up at him through her lashes and just barely has enough time to close her eyes before he kisses her.

She blushes all through class the next day. He smiles at her afterwards, hands her one of her papers back and she finds his number written on a Post-It on a page somewhere in the middle.

... ... ...

He's mid-beer #4 when she calls. Yeah, it's a Wednesday, but he just got an essay back and he got 83% on it, and he figures that's cause for celebration, even if his friends are losers (or in New York) and he has to do it alone.

"Hey, baby," he says when he answers, and maybe he's a little buzzed. (Three beers and a shot of JD. _83%_, though.)

"Hi. You're good with secrets and bad decisions, right?"

He just laughs and lounges back against his sofa. "_Oh_, yeah. What's up?"

"It's dumb. I'm stupid."

He rolls his eyes. She is not.

"Are not."

"Are you drunk?" she asks, and he can almost hear her laughing.

"More drunk than you are stupid." She full out giggles, which is one of the cutest damn things she does. "What's dumb?"

"Nothing," she says, then sighs.

"Rach, you called me, freaking out about something. Tell me."

She hesitates. He's not sure he's going to like this.

"What would you say if I told you I'm kind of seeing someone?" she asks, speaking all fast.

Nope. Doesn't like it.

"Uh..."

"That's what I thought," she mumbles, not even giving him a chance to say anything else. Well, maybe there were a few seconds in there where he just didn't do anything and, like, waited for her to tell him she's kidding or something.

"I don't have to like it, right?" he asks. "Like, you didn't think I'd be all, 'yeah, sure, Rach, go ahead and bang some dude who's...'"

He's pretty thankful she cuts him off before he can finish that sentence.

_Who's not me._

"I just need advice," she says, and he groans, because she has to go and sound all cute and pathetic on him. She must know she has him, too, because she doesn't even let him say anything before she's talking again. "He's older."

"Like, could be a third dad older?" he asks warily.

She laughs again. "No. Just like...a few years, really."

"How many's a few?" he asks laughingly, 'cause he can totally see through her bullshit.

"Eight."

Fuck. His insecurity (which totally stems from the alcohol, btw) is making him wonder how in the hell he can compete with some old dude. He stops himself before he can ask, though, because according to her he's not supposed to want to be in the game.

"'Kay."

"And he's my teacher," she adds quietly.

Fuck. He didn't know she had it in her.

But damn. Someone else gets to have it in her.

"You're banging your teacher?"

(Clarity. It's important, okay?)

"No!" she cries, and he believes her because of her voice alone. "No. He just...we're...It's innocent, kind of."

"For now," he mutters. "You kiss him?"

He doesn't know why he feels like he needs to know. He just does.

She sighs. "Maybe this was a bad idea. I shouldn't have called you," she says quietly.

"No, hey. C'mon." He doesn't know why, but he just doesn't want her to hang up or something. "I'm just...I dunno what I am."

She laughs a little bit. God, he loves that laugh. He just...

Okay, look, he doesn't want to lose her, and he's seen it happening for a while. She calls less or their talks get shorter, and it's no big, because they still email or text, but now she's got this other dude in her life, and there's no way he's gonna be cool with her still talking daily with the dude who's spent every break for the last however many years getting her off. They already tried that with one asshole, and look how well that turned out. He just...He wants her to, like, chill and not fuck around with other dudes.

It's selfish and he's an asshole for thinking it, but so what? So he's an asshole. That shouldn't be news to anyone.

"I just need someone to talk to," she says all quietly.

"Yeah. I know," he says. "I'm right here, baby."

Shit. Maybe he sounds more like what he wants to be or something. Which is kinda like a boyfriend or whatever. Only not a real boyfriend because of stupid America all in between them.

(Yeah, he just took a pull straight from the bottle of Jack. Don't judge. He's dealing with some shit.)

"I don't know what to do," she admits. "I really like him, Noah."

Okay, yeah, he might be here, but he still doesn't want to listen to shit like that.

"Do you, like, want my permission or something?"

"I don't need your permission to do anything," she says, and fuck, her giving him attitude is totally hot.

"I know. I know. I'm just..." He sighs and closes his eyes. "Fuck. If you like him, then fuckin' go for it."

He says it fast, like he doesn't really want to be saying it at all, and she'll probably totally see through it and know he doesn't really, really mean it, but whatever.

And seriously, if she wants to be with someone else, then fuck her. It's not like she's his only option or anything. He can have a girlfriend. He could be with a girl right this second if he wanted to. He doesn't need to be celibate or fucking pining over this girl who lives forever away and won't put out when she's near him.

"Why does it sound like you're mad at me?"

"Because you're crazy," he tells her. Honestly, if she doesn't want him, then whatever. He's not going to make an ass of himself and try and make her. He doesn't even know what he wants from her anyway. "I'm serious. Look, if you have feelings for him, you should act on it, right? You don't wanna miss your chance or whatever."

Fuck. He totally just sounded like her there. If he'd called her with the same problem, that's exactly what she would have said.

She laughs, but it's kind of bittersweet or something. "Yeah. Missed chances aren't the best feeling," she says. So maybe he shouldn't have used those words. "Are they?"

God, why does she have to go there?

"Wouldn't know," he says casually.

But then he starts thinking about it, and maybe they haven't missed their chance. Maybe they just haven't really had it yet.

He needs more beer.

... ... ...

How she ends up on her back on Dan's floor with his hand running up the inside of her thigh, she isn't totally sure. All she knows is one minute they were talking about rain and how comforting it can be, and the next he was kissing her and moving his body so it was over hers.

"You have the best legs," he murmurs against her skin in this sexy voice that makes her have to close her eyes.

"I know," she breathes out. He chuckles and pulls away, and she's blushing because she really didn't mean to say that out loud. "I mean I've heard that before."

"Rachel? Don't bring up situations with other men when I'm doing this," he says, smiling down at her as his hand brushes against her.

Maybe he's joking but she can tell he kind of means it, too, so she decides to be sexy and says, "Who said anything about other men?" into his ear while he's kissing her neck.

He groans and teases at the leg of her panties with his fingertips, and it should feel amazing, shouldn't it? He's this distinguished, successful man, and he wants her, and he's treated her well for two weeks, well enough for her to trust him enough to let him put his hand under her skirt.

And all she can think about is Noah. His rougher, bigger hands, and his dirtier words and his more urgent touches.

And yes, he's the one who told her she has the best legs. Actually, she remembers it clearly, because it was during the time when she was home when his mother was sick. They hadn't slept together at that point (well, not during that visit) but she was laying on his bed on her stomach, her legs in the air. He was laying so his face was at her feet, and he'd started sliding his hand up and down her calf, moving higher and higher with every stroke. Then she'd looked at him finally, when his fingertips teased at the bottom of her skirt at the back of her thighs, and he'd said, "Fuck, Rach, you have the sexiest fucking legs I've ever seen," and it had been very difficult to concentrate after that.

Almost as difficult as it is to concentrate right now.

"Wait," she says breathlessly, pushing at his hand. "Wait."

"What? Are you okay?"

She smiles at him, because it should be so, so easy to want him, and it is, kind of. She loves that he's so dedicated to his profession, his passion and his students. And he really does treat her amazingly well. This is the first time they've even gone this far, and if he's been frustrated with her he hasn't shown it.

Maybe if she'd met him first...

"I'm fine," she says. The smile she gives him isn't forced, and neither is the way she sets her hand on his cheek. "I'm fine, really. I just don't think I can do this."

He blinks at her a few times and moves further away so they can have a proper conversation without breathing one anothers' air. "This...right now? Or us?"

"Right now," she says quietly. "Maybe us. I don't know. I don't want to...It's complicated."

He fixes her with a knowing smirk and she bites her lip. "Who is he?" he asks, leaning back against the front of his sofa and resting his elbow on the knee he pulls up. "The guy?"

"There's no guy!"

He just tilts his head. "Rachel."

"He's..." She sighs and shrugs helplessly. "It's a long story."

It's a total cop out, but it's also the truth.

"Sounds like it's not really over," he says, smiling at her a little bit, and she knows he's not mad at her.

He might be right, too.

... ... ...

"How's the old guy?"

Whatever. She's dating some dude who's almost 30? She has to deal with the old people jokes.

He's got a lot of them. He's been writing them down.

"I wouldn't know," she says.

He doesn't ask her anything else about it, and she doesn't offer up any information. It's not like that was really open to interpretation. Pretty sure he knows what it means.

He smiles way too widely for the rest of the day and doesn't even pretend to not know why.

... ... ...

It's too late to drop the class. (She wonders how often that happens when students get involved with their teachers; karma or something like it.)

She starts sitting close to the back and not making eye contact with Dan when he tries.


	6. Chapter 6

He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He really doesn't know at all. He packed a bag and spent money he probably doesn't have, and he's sitting in the fucking freezing cold on the curb outside her apartment building, thinking he's a fucking idiot for doing this.

It's just that there's really nowhere else he can even think he wants to be right now.

She doesn't even smile when she sees him, and that's probably proof he looks like absolute shit, which he's not really surprised about at all. She says something about it being cold, and why didn't he call, and that he should get inside. She's all concerned, and if there's something in his eye it's because everything fucking sucks right now and he thought just seeing her would make it better, but it's not working out that way. He fucking hates life. He hates everything. He hates everything that exists outside this 10 foot area where she's putting a blanket around him and pushing a cup of something warm into his hands. He doesn't want it, so he puts it on the table, but thanks her anyway.

"You're scaring me," she says quietly, and he doesn't really know when she took his hand, but she's looking down at his as she holds it between both of hers. "What...?"

"My mom."

She looks up at him and he watches her eyes, mostly because everything you need to know about Rachel can been seen in her eyes. Then she lets out a little breath and her lip starts doing something that breaks his fucking heart, which he thinks is ironic or something.

"Noah."

She starts crying before he's even explained anything to her, and he fucking loves her for that. He really does. She just...She expresses all the shit he can't make himself do, and she puts her arms around him like she actually gives a damn. He knows she does, and has for a long time. He presses his face against her neck and her hand is on the back of his head. He doesn't give a shit if she can feel the tears leaking from his eyes. He hasn't _really _cried since he was 11 and broke his ankle jumping fire hydrants with Finn.

He thinks you get a free pass when you find out your mom's dying.

... ... ...

They end up in her bed, because he's chilled through and she's worried about him. He won't tell her how long he waited outside, and she thinks he's an idiot for not calling her. She would have skipped class. She would have met him at the airport. She would have prepared herself so she wasn't a crying mess when he said those words. She wants to be strong for him and help him and not make him feel like he has to console her, but she can't seem to stop crying and he's barely been talking.

All she knows is his mother's health is deteriorating fast, that they found it in her pancreas and that's one of the worst things, and they haven't put a time line on anything but the oncologist told her to prepare herself.

Rachel knows what that means.

"Noah," she says after a while, when he's just on his side facing her, his hand on her hip and holding her tighter than he has to. (She's not going anywhere.) "What can I do?"

"Nothing," he mumbles. He moves his hand to swipe at his eyes, then quickly puts it back on her body. "Nothing. There's not...You're as useless as I am right now."

She knows he doesn't mean it as harshly as it sounds. She knows she's helping him in some way, or he wouldn't be holding her so close; wouldn't be letting her see him like this; wouldn't have flown from Montana to New York.

"I want to do something," she says quietly, eyes filling again. He slips his hand into her hair and kisses her softly, lets his lips linger there.

"Maybe you are."

She almost doesn't hear it. He kisses her again but doesn't do anything more, and she stops asking questions and just lets him lay there with her, because she knows him and he'll tell her if there's anything he needs.

He's just kind of scaring her right now, because as much as she loves being there for him, she can't quite wrap her head around the fact that he wasn't on the first plan back to Lima. She knows why, of course, she just thought he'd...

That he's in New York at all, or anyplace other than at his mother's bedside, tells Rachel that he's taking this a lot harder than anyone might have ever assumed he would.

... ... ...

He stays a day and a half. He'd stay longer if it didn't make him the worst son ever to stay away from home.

He doesn't want to go. Reality is there and he fucking hates reality. In a way, he always has.

They don't leave her apartment once the entire time. Hell, they hardly leave her bed. They don't _do_ anything, but she keeps him there and lays under the blankets with him and they talk a little bit, but mostly he just touches her. It sounds stupid, but he just touches her. He tries to keep a hand on her all the time, because she's real and she's his, kind of, and she's not going anywhere. And if she is, he doesn't know about it and he doesn't have to think about it and hold his breath until she does. That's the worst part, really. He tells her he hates that part, and she takes this little gasping breath he knows means she's trying not to cry.

When they sleep, he holds her from behind, tighter than he ever has. She weaves their fingers together or puts her hand over his or something, and he probably shouldn't love it as much as he does, but he can't help it. This is why he came to her. She's just...she gets him.

"I'll come with you," she says as he drops his clothes back into his bag. She's dressed and sitting at the end of her bed, and he shakes his head.

"You have school."

"I don't care!" She's almost pouting, looking like a little girl, and it almost makes him smile. (No surprise that the first smile that threatens to break is because of her, too.) "I don't want you to go alone."

He kneels in front of her and puts his hands on her thighs, and she's crying again. "It's not like it'll help." She looks at him like he's tearing out her heart or something, and he feels like the biggest asshole in the world. "I didn't mean it like that."

He smoothes his thumb over her thigh and watches her. She's not looking at him, and she brushes her cheek and almost groans, like she's annoyed with herself for crying again or something. He knows he should have wanted to fuck her at some point, since he's a guy and she's her and they're them, but...It's not that he doesn't want her. He always wants her. It's just that...Fuck. He doesn't even know what the hell's going on right now, and sex is (maybe for the first time) one of the last things on his mind. He realizes, though, that basically every time they've been together since they (she) decided to be 'friends' they've ended up kissing. They suck as no-sex friends, and he wants to tell her that. Maybe he's deflecting or whatever the fuck she'd say, but he really wants to bring it up.

"I want to see her," she whispers.

"Rachel."

"Don't tell me I can't. Don't tell me I'm not allowed to..." She's crying really hard now, so he wraps his arms around her. "Let me come. Please, Noah."

He knows he can't stop her from doing anything. She's a grown woman and she's never let anyone stop her from making decisions before, and this is a million times better than some of the shit she's done in the past. Plus, he doesn't know what the hell he's gonna walk into when he gets home. He doesn't know, really, what state of health his mom's in, or how his sister is taking it. He's going to need someone on his side, and his aunts are fucking lunatics and he doesn't want to deal with them. Suddenly having Rachel in his corner really seems like something he might need.

He hates needing things. But if it's _her_ he needs, he's kind of okay with it.

... ... ...

The first thing she does is let go of his hand and go up to Hannah's room. She knows he'll want time alone with his mother, and he's worried about his sister, so Rachel figures she can at least try to be helpful and do something about both.

She takes the girl to her house. Her dads are both at work and she just left her daddy a message on his voicemail telling him she was going to be home and why. She hasn't seen her fathers in a long time, and she's excited to, but she knows that's not the reason for her visit and so do they.

Hannah is laying on Rachel's bed, holding a stuffed pig in her arms. It's Rachel's and they're both probably too old to pay it any attention, but it stays on Rachel's bed when she's not there and Hannah seems to want to hold something, and Rachel isn't going to stop her from finding comfort in anything right now.

It's almost an hour before Hannah speaks. Rachel hasn't wanted to push her, so she's just been on her computer, looking up things about this type of cancer. She kind of regrets it, because...

_Because_.

"Is Noah okay?"

Rachel looks up from her computer and Hannah looks so sad and small on the bed that Rachel moves over and sits down next to her. She can't stop herself from combing her fingers through the girl's hair in what she hopes is a soothing way.

"I think so," Rachel says. "He's sad."

Hannah's eyes fill with tears, but she looks angry, too. Rachel has seen this look a lot in the past few days. "It's not fair," she says.

Rachel doesn't know what to say to that. Hannah's right. It's not fair. This girl isn't even 12 years old and she's about to lose her mother. (Rachel's not deluded enough to think Mrs. Puckerman will recover from this, as much as it's killing her to think about it.)

"I know, sweetie," Rachel says. Hannah lets out a little sob and closes her eyes tight, so Rachel lays down and wraps her arms around the girl. "It's not."

... ... ...

"How's Hannah?" his mom asks when she wakes up from her nap.

He's already pissed.

"How are you?" he asks, arms folded across his chest as he stands in her doorway.

She closes her eyes and sighs, shakes her head, and he knows nothing's ever going to be normal again.

He hugs her and sits next to her as she outlines what she knows and what's going to happen and he doesn't want to hear any of it, but he doesn't want to upset her by telling her to shut up 'cause he can't handle it.

"What do you need me to do?" he asks after she's done. It reminds him of how Rachel asked, and he realizes he is to his mom what Rachel is to him. It's fucked up how life works like that.

"Nothing," she says.

He knows she's lying, but he kind of likes this right now, pretending nothing's going to change even if they both know it is.

... ... ...

Her fathers come home and dish out hugs for both girls before making dinner. They ask if Noah will be joining them, and Rachel just shakes her head subtly. She's really not sure, but since he hasn't arrived yet she can assume he's not coming. That's okay. She didn't tell him as much, but she'll keep watch over Hannah for as long as he needs.

They watch shows Hannah tells them she's never allowed to watch, and Rachel smiles when her dads laugh and sit the girl between them on the couch and make her giggle and feed her ice cream and hot chocolate. They really are amazing and she's missed them. When Noah comes to pick up his sister, it's nearly 10:00 and he explains Hannah's been excused from school for tomorrow, so it's okay that she's crashed and basically passed out on the couch from her sugar high.

He scoops her up in his arms and Rachel slips on her own jacket and carries Hannah's things to the car while Noah puts Hannah in the front seat.

"Thanks," he says, taking the girl's bag and jacket from her. "For..." He sighs and leans back against his car, looks over his shoulder to see that Hannah's still asleep. "It's bad."

She bites the inside of her cheek and nods, hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket. "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head at her and shivers. "Mom has this thing tomorrow and I'm going."

"I'll come watch Hannah," she says without him having to speak the words.

"No," he says, almost laughing. He looks to his feet and she takes a step closer, grabs the front of his jacket because he's right there and she wants to. "Will you come?"

"Oh." She's quiet and surprised, and she knows that if he just asked like that, he really wants her there with him. The fact that he 'let' her come to Lima at all says the same thing. He looks up at her and she realizes maybe she's taking too long to answer. "Yes. Of course. If you want me to."

He grabs her elbows and pulls her flush against him. "I asked, didn't I?" He's trying to make it sound like a joke, but she knows it's not. "Maybe it's easier if you just come stay at my place," he says, shrugging his shoulder. "Or whatever."

"Easier?" she asks. She's trying not to laugh. He'd never come right out and say he wants her in his bed (not when it's clear sex isn't on the table). "Well, if it's easier."

"Shut up," he mumbles against her hair.

... ... ...

She spends all three nights she's in Lima in his bed, so it really sucks when, a day before he has to go back to school, he has to take her to the airport. It's totally lame and he knows it, but he sleeps way better when she's there than when she's not, and he likes having her around and being around her. She spends most of her time making food and taking care of his sister and his mom, and he thinks it's crazy, how easily it comes to her. She fits in with his family and they welcome him, and he hates thinking of shit like this, but Hannah's going to need someone, someone other than just him, and knowing Rachel's good with her is definitely...well, he takes note of it.

She doesn't seem to want to let go of him, either, and he doesn't really know what to think of that, other than, you know, thinking he likes it a lot.

"I don't want to go," she admits quietly, face pressed against his neck.

"You have class."

"So do you," she pouts. He just looks at her. "Sorry." Honestly, he'd take a lifetime of school if it meant he didn't have to deal with all this other stuff. "I just wish I could stay. With you."

"Yeah."

He should probably thank her or something, or tell her to call him when she's back in New York or whatever, but really, all he wants to do is kiss her.

So he does.

It's not like they didn't kiss when they were sharing his bed. They did. They were just little kisses here and there, and no tongue, and nothing crazy. He's sick of that shit, to be honest. He needs to kiss her for real or he'll fuck everything up. They've always kissed, always, since that summer after high school, and he's not gonna stop now just because his life sucks so hard and she doesn't want to be with him or whatever. Besides, she's never stopped him from kissing her, initiated it a few times, and she did just spend three nights in his bed. He thinks he's allowed to put his tongue in her mouth and make her let out that noise that has always made his fingers dig into her skin.

All the way back to his place from the airport, he tries to come up with reasons not to want her or like her or need to be with her.

He comes up empty and when he goes to bed at night, he can smell her on his pillow and wakes up no less than three times when he tries to reach for her and she's not there.

... ... ...

She knows she'll see him in a matter of weeks when they're both in Lima for the holidays. It doesn't seem like soon enough. He texts more, and calls, and he emails her once. It's actually a forward, from his mother about her health, and Rachel knows she's the only one who knows. (He's told her he doesn't want anyone to know. "Anyone but you," he'd said, and it made her feel special, as horrible as the whole thing is). She just wants...She just _wants_.

She wishes they were a real couple and she could be there with him and do something to make it all better, make it all go away.

She has a little too much wine one Friday night with the girls, and ends up in her bed at 2:00 a.m. with her phone to her ear and his sleepy voice mumbling to her, asking if she's okay and what the fuck?

"I miss you," she says. She thinks she's crying, but she wipes the tears on her pillowcase and he'll never have to know.

"Yeah, baby."

"Are you awake?"

"Rach," he laughs, "how drunk are you?"

She sighs and (because she's even more dramatic than usual when she's been drinking) smoothes her hand over the side of her bed she thinks he should be laying on. "I just want to be there with you," she admits for the first time. "I hate missing you all the time." He just lets out a breath, but doesn't say anything. She hopes he hasn't gone back to sleep on her, or she'll feel like a creep when she listens to him breathing for a while. "Don't fall asleep."

"'S'late. Early. Whatever," he murmurs. "Tired. Stop crying."

"I'm not!"

_How does he know?_

"Rach," he chuckles. She hears sheets rustling. God, she wants to be with him. It's ridiculous now. She's not even pretending there's anyone else she wants. "I'll see you soon."

Maybe she's being a little crazy. It's really late where he is and she's sure he has classes. He's trying to study and play football and deal with his family situation all at the same time, and she's the silly girl he knows who calls him when she's drunk to tell him how much she misses him. She feels really, really stupid now.

"I know. Sorry I called so late."

"'S'okay." She yawns and he laughs a little again. "Hey. I miss you, too, or whatever."

"Do you?" she asks hopefully.

"Shut up. Go to bed."

She giggles and says goodnight and falls asleep in her jeans and sweater.

When he calls in the morning, she bitches at him for calling so early and his laughter might just be the best hangover cure she's ever had.


	7. Chapter 7

It seems like every time he talks to his mom, things are getting worse and worse. Not even with just her health, but with his sister and the house and everything. She had to take out a second mortgage when the bills started piling up and she stopped working. Hannah's grades have plummeted, and he feels so fucking useless right now it's not even funny. Football practice is basically the stupidest thing in his life, and his school work is sliding a little because he just doesn't know how any of it fucking matters when life sucks so hard and you just die at the end of it.

He needs to do something. He needs to help his mom and his sister and make something better for either (preferably both) of them. So he talks to Hannah on the phone and threatens that if she doesn't keep her grades up, he's gonna be so pissed at her she'll physically feel it and he won't even have to touch her. He also helps her with her homework, but it's mostly the threats.

So that's one thing, and his mom thanks him for it, but the money thing is a huge issue. If they lose the house, he's totally fucked and so is Hannah. When his mom dies they're going to need a place to live.

Yeah, he's moving back to Lima. He has to. Someone has to take care of Hannah, and he'll be damned if it's gonna be one of his stupid aunts in Toledo or Cleveland. He's just deferred the semester and he'll go from there once shit is sorted out. Yet another reason why football is stupid right now. His coach totally hates him for leaving, even if he understands the reason why. Obviously family is bigger than some stupid division two trophy they probably don't even have a hope in hell of winning.

In a way it's good that you can find anything you want online. In another, he hates that he does what he does, because his useless fuck of a father doesn't deserve to ever hear his voice. He shoves that pride away, though, and takes a breath and calls, because he knows for a fact that the dude has a sweet gig in L.A. as a session guitar player, and Puck thinks if the guy can take care of his new family, he can finally do something to take care of the old one.

And he's not taking no for an answer. He says as much after he's explained who he is, and the asshole actually has the balls to sound shocked. It pisses Puck off because he knows from experience that there's a little hope that one day the phone's gonna ring and it's gonna be _his_ kid on the other end of the line. Puck shouldn't be surprised that the asshole doesn't give a fuck and probably never wanted to hear from him again.

His dad's apparently got three kids with some 30 year old, and Puck can hear them in the background.

"I don't give a shit if you never talk to me again," Puck says. "Just send a check and we'll call it even."

"I can't just..."

"Don't even fucking say that shit." Puck clenches his fist because this whole thing is pissing him off and making him seriously rage. "You didn't give Hannah or I fuck all after you walked out. This isn't about mom, it's about us. You already left us without a dad, so don't take away our fucking house, too."

Yeah, he's laying it on thick, but this is a lot of years of frustration and (he'll admit it) hurt all coming out in this one conversation, and he knows for a fact that this stupid asshole is never going to pick up the phone and call again, so he's throwing in some anger about that, too.

He's also pissed the guy doesn't know how hard this call was to make. It's not like he just picked up and dialed and had no problem at all asking for money. This took a few days and a lot of talking himself into it.

So the check comes to his place a week later in an envelope with absolutely nothing else. He transfers all $20,000 into his mom's account and tells her not to ask questions. She does anyway, and he just tells her he didn't do anything illegal to get it. He knows she figures it all out, but she doesn't say anything to him but thank you.

He calls Rachel when he's laying on his living room floor and thinking about how fucked up everything is.

"I talked to my dad."

She says his name all softly and says if he wants to talk about it, she'll listen. He doesn't really want to, so he tells her that and she's fine with it, and it's about five minutes into their conversation when he takes it back and tells her everything. He kind of _wants_ her to know everything.

"I think that's really brave of you," she says quietly, and he knows she means it.

He scoffs anyway. "It's not brave."

"Yes it is," she insists. "I don't know what it would take for me to call my mom at this point."

And then they're quiet because her mom is his kid's mom, and they really haven't ever talked about this. It's weird, but it's as big of a deal as it isn't one at all. They both care, obviously, but there's nothing either of them can do about the situation.

"I dunno. I didn't want to do it."

"I know," she says quietly. "But I'm really proud of you."

Fuck, this girl.

Every single day he thinks he's getting closer and closer to being in love with her or something, and that's just fucked up.

Mostly because he's going back to Lima and she'll never leave New York and he doesn't know if there's really any hope for them at all.

... ... ...

She drops her things at her house when she gets home for the holidays, and promptly tells her fathers she's going out. They know exactly where 'out' is. They jokingly ask if they'll get to see her at all this time, and she just kisses each of their cheeks on her way out the door and calls, "If you're lucky!" to them over her shoulder. She knows they understand why she's going to be spending so much of her time at the Puckerman's. Of course, Aviva's illness has a lot to do with that. The rest has to do with being mostly in love with Noah and knowing she's not crazy for feeling it, even if they might never actually work.

He's shoveling the walk when she pulls up and gets out of her car, and she nearly slips on the driveway because she runs towards him like an idiot, but she doesn't care. He wraps his arms around her, laughing and calling her a dork, as soon as she's near him. She lifts her feet off the ground for fun and he kisses her right next to her ear and says, "So fucking happy to see you, baby," and her heart does a triple backflip in her chest.

Then he hands her a shovel and turns to walk into the house, says something about making coffee to warm her up when she's done. So she squeals his name and pouts until he's laughing and grabbing her arm to pull her inside. His mother is sitting on the big, comfortable chair in the room and her face lights up when she sees Rachel. God, Rachel loves this family.

Noah gets the coffee while the women catch up, and he says he'll be upstairs when Hannah gets off the bus and then there are three of them sitting there talking about what he deems 'stupid girly shit'.

Rachel doesn't take long to go upstairs and join him. She's home for three whole weeks this time, and she knows she's got time to spend with him, but she's missed him and he looks really amazing in that grey sweater and jeans.

She's a little more than shocked when she gets to his room and sees that it's almost entirely full of boxes. He's unpacking one, and he looks over at her. She just blinks at him, because she knows what he's doing, moving home, and that part doesn't surprise her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks, closing the door gently behind her, never taking her eyes off him.

He sets a few books on a shelf and laughs quietly. "You woulda hired movers and wanted to fuckin' redecorate in here and..."

"Noah," she pleads. She wants him to be serious. (Though his room could use a fresh coat of paint.)

"I just knew you'd be fuckin'...disappointed in me or whatever, so..."

She takes a step closer to him and it sounds mean when she says, "Disappointed?"

He shrugs his shoulder and looks back to the box he's been unpacking. "I had to leave school. Obviously you're all about..."

"Noah," she says again, shaking her head. She grabs his hands so he stops avoiding her and trying to downplay this conversation. "I'm not disappointed. God, I'm...You're taking care of your family. I admire you."

He lets out a breathy laugh, but then looks up at her and asks, "really?"

"Of course," she whispers. He slips his hand into her hair and uses the other to tug her closer by the belt loop on her jeans. "You're such a good man."

She's not looking at him as she says it, and when there's a beat of silence she worries she's taken things too far, but then he pushes her face up a little and presses his forehead against hers.

He doesn't kiss her, but she wants him to.

... ... ...

He wakes up on the floor in his basement with Rachel's hair in his mouth and her leg over his, some old Christmas movie playing softly in the background. He glances at the window and there's sun shining outside and the clock in the room reads 7:33.

He shakes her a little bit, because they totally didn't mean to fall asleep, and all night she'd been telling him she was going to sleep at home and he'd told her he'd get her to stay. It kind of became a challenge, then somehow they ended up laying on the floor (couch was way too small) and she murmured something about giving in right before she dozed off.

"Mmm. Is it morning?" she asks, pushing herself closer to him. She's just wearing a thin pair of sweatpants and an NYU sweatshirt.

"Yeah."

She trails a few kisses over his neck, and it's not totally weird, but she doesn't usually do things that..._sexy_. He's the one trying to get her to give in all the time. Like when he slides his hand down her ass or rests his head against her chest and kisses her boob through her shirt or finds that place just next to her ear that always makes her purr at him.

So he's not going to say anything to make her stop or spook her. He kinda likes her lips on his body, thanks very much. But then she stops and yawns and giggles and presses her face against his neck and says something about food.

So they go out for breakfast still in their sweats and he pushes his hand as high up her thigh as she'll let him. (Which is pretty high.)

When he drops her at home she tells him to come over later because her dads are going to some holiday party and he needs a night away from his house.

He says yes because that sounds like a really fucking good invitation.

(They don't have sex, which kinda sucks, but she lets him pick the movies and keeps bringing him snacks and somehow finds something to cry over during Die Hard, and he thinks she's the most awesome woman ever.)

... ... ...

"Do you think things will ever be good again?" she asks one night. He's sitting on her floor with his back against her bed and his guitar across his lap. He's plucking out John Mayer songs and she knows he'll never admit to anyone else that he knows them. She loves them.

He starts playing Stop This Train and says, "Doesn't feel like it," all nonchalantly, like that choice of song isn't shockingly fitting.

"I think they will," she says. She moves herself around so she's laying on her stomach with her arms around his neck from behind and her chin on his shoulder. "I do."

"Makes one of us."

They're quiet for a minute and she wants to start humming the song, but she doesn't do it. Neither does he, so it's just quiet guitar filling the room until she kisses his cheek.

"I promise," she says quietly.

He's still for a moment, just his hands moving, but then he nods and lets out a breath and turns his head so she can kiss him properly.

They're probably blurring the lines, but it's not like they were ever really all that clear to begin with.

... ... ...

He goes a couple days without seeing her and it blows, so he doesn't really know what he's going to do when she goes back to New York and isn't a 17 minute drive across town. Or, as the case may be, taking up permanent residence in his living room with his mom. Even the neighbour asks where Rachel is when Puck's out shoveling the driveway (for the hundredth goddamn time in, like, two weeks). So yeah, she's been around.

But her dads took her to see her nana or something like that, so she was gone all day yesterday, and he knows she had plans with Santana (fucking unholy alliance right there) and Brittany today. To be honest, all he wants to do is lay in his bed with her. They've been doing a lot of that. The other day she totally let him unzip her pants. He couldn't put his hand inside or anything, but still. He feels like he's in high school or something, just trying to get to third base. It's stupid, but also kind of exactly what he expects from her. They're making out a lot, but nothing more, and it's messed up, because it's not like they haven't done it before, and it's not like either of them is with anyone else or anything. Plus, she calls him all the time when they're not together and says she misses him, and the other day when he was talking to her on the phone she let out this little noise and told him his voice sounded really good.

So why aren't they doing more than just kissing like 14 year olds?

She comes over after her dinner with 'the girls' and he can tell she's had a drink or two. She crawls onto his bed and lays down, and says that Hannah's asleep and his mom's door is closed, that she checked on her way down the hall to his room.

So naturally he's thinking she's gonna totally do him.

He ends up rolling her beneath him after she tells him about her night and asks a couple questions about his. She says she thought about him all night, and that's all he needs to hear. He's got her under him now and it's fucking magic when they do this. It's weird, since she's so little, but she just fits there so well. He feels like the man when they're like this, because there's always a split second where he thinks he's so much bigger than her that he could totally protect her.

That's a new feeling. Not that he hasn't wanted to protect her for a while, but it's more...It's different now. He feels like it's one of the few things he can control these days, how safe she is when he's around her. He thinks it means something he doesn't really want yet, so he usually ignores it and hasn't ever actually stopped to analyze it or anything.

And she does this thing with her tongue that makes him fucking nuts. She slides it up along his jaw line until she gets to his ear, and if he groans because of it, she lets out this tiny, little giggle like she's got the upper hand or something. Maybe she does. Fuck if he knows. He pushes her thighs open wider so he can fit better, and presses against her more because he wants to feel as much of her as he can at any given moment. Her hands go to his shoulders and sit there as they kiss, and he's not responsible for the words he says against her lips.

(That's his story, anyway. Obviously he knows what he's saying.)

"Let's have sex."

She makes this choked little sound and pushes at his shoulders, and given that her legs are parted for him and until a few seconds ago her tongue was in his mouth, he doesn't know why she's doing that.

"What?" she asks.

He smirks at her and pushes his hand up under her shirt again. "C'mon, baby."

"No," she says seriously, brow furrowed. He doesn't move, because _really_? "Noah, stop."

Okay, the 'no' was enough, but the 'stop' makes him get off her.

"What?" he asks once he's sitting next to her and looking at her.

"We can't. We shouldn't."

"Why the hell not?" Maybe he sounds pissed, but that's mostly because he is. She pushes herself up so she's sitting against his headboard.

"We're friends." She rubs her lips with her thumb, which basically makes him want to peel her clothes off and remind her how fucking good they are together.

"We make out every fucking day."

"We..." She sighs and stands up, but he grabs her wrist.

"Don't bail." He locks eyes with her so she'll be able to see that he's not being a dick. "Stay."

"I can't stay when you're asking me to do things like that," she admits as he strokes his thumb over her knuckles.

"Was more of a demand, if you think about it."

She laughs a little, then says, "Don't joke," and he sighs and pulls her towards him so she'll sit on his thigh. "Sex makes everything complicated."

"It's already complicated," he says, almost a little too meanly. "I mean, come on. We're..."

He doesn't finish it. He can tell by the way she looks down at their hands and turns hers over so their palms are pressed together that she's going to ask him to fill in the blanks. "What are we?" she asks, and it's not that lame girly conversation or anything.

"I dunno," he admits. "Fuckin'...complicated." She laughs quietly and presses her forehead against his temple. "I just kinda like you." She laughs so hard this time that she has to cover her mouth with her hand, and he kisses it as it sits over her lips. "A lot." She pulls her hand away and she's smiling. "So much, baby."

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him and they've basically resolved nothing, and he's still hard in his pants and she's still hot as fuck and sitting on him.

"I'm still not having sex with you," she says between kisses. He lays down and pulls her with him.

"Okay," he says quietly, pushing the hair back from her face. "Okay. Just...Just stay."

She does.

... ... ...

She wakes up in his arms with his hand flat on her bare stomach under the shirt of his she fell asleep in. She says his name quietly and he moans a little, presses his whole self against her and buries his face in her hair. She doesn't mind, really, it's just that when she feels how aroused he is (this happens nearly every time) she just wants to..._wants to._ It's not right and they can't, because they've screwed everything up and they're not a couple, but they're not _not_ a couple, either. She'd love it if they were, but knows why they aren't.

She knows she's his escape from everything right now, too, and sometimes, whether he knows it or not, he's hers. Sometimes she just needs to know there's someone out there who cares about her. Noah obviously does. She won't lose him because they can't keep their hormones in check. How stupid would that be?

"'Morning," he mumbles against her hair. He must know he's hard, but he's not moving away from her at all.

Then again, they wake up like this (or some variation of this) almost every morning, so she figures it's not exactly going to do any harm. Maybe she's just on edge from last night.

"Hmm," she murmurs, sliding her hand over his and fitting her fingers between his.

"Time is it?"

"Almost 8:00, I think," she answers. She could pull away so she could see the clock, but that requires pulling away, so clearly it's not the best option. "Are you still playing hockey with the guys today?"

"Hmm. 10:00." He pushes his hips against her and she knows he's half asleep, but he must know very well what he's doing. "Gonna come?"

It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to realize that's neither a statement, nor a sexual question.

"No," she answers. (That may have been her response no matter what.) "I think I'll stay here with your mom. If that's okay?"

He kisses her hair and nods, pulls her closer still. "Goin' back to sleep." She tries to get up, but he won't let her, says, "Don't," and she can't bring herself to try any harder to leave his bed.

They make breakfast together and sit at the table to eat after Rachel goes to get Hannah up out of bed. She decides she wants to go watch her brother ply hockey. Rachel keeps the girl's schoolgirl crush on Mike Chang to herself and just smiles at Hannah and tells her to go dress warmly because the outdoor rink is freezing and notoriously windy. Noah tidies the kitchen as Rachel braids Hannah's hair and ensures the girl has enough layers on. He tells Hannah to get her skates and says they might need her to play if they don't have enough people. Rachel knows for sure that Hannah will be on the ice and none of the guys will have a problem with that, and she wedges herself between him and the counter, kisses him while Hannah runs down to the basement, and Rachel knows he doesn't really know why she's doing it.

He makes her promise she'll still be there when he gets back, and she just laughs as if to tell him that of course she'll be there. Where else would she be?

Aviva isn't having a good morning. Rachel can tell right away, because it's just shortly after 10:00 and the woman is still in bed. She goes upstairs with herbal tea and Aviva's mid-morning medication, and taps gently on the bedroom door. She pushes it open to see the woman frail and pale and leaning back against the pillows with a book in her hands.

"Why didn't you come downstairs?" Rachel asks politely, setting water and tea on the bedside table and pulling back the blinds to let in some sun. "Noah took Hannah with him."

"That's nice of him," Aviva says, smiling gently.

Rachel notices the avoidance of the other question.

"Are you feeling alright?" Rachel asks, sitting at the edge of the bed. "Can I get you anything?"

"I'll be fine, dear." Rachel doesn't believe it. Neither of them does, but it's just one of those lies they've all been glossing over recently. "I think there must be some holiday movie on by now, don't you?"

Rachel chuckles and reaches for the remote, turns on the television and switches channels until they find Elf playing somewhere, and sits back against the pillows next to Aviva when the woman pats the bed there. She tucks her legs under the covers and is really thankful she didn't get dressed; her flannel pajama pants and Noah's sweatshirt are more comfortable than anything else.

Aviva tugs at Rachel's sleeve and laughs quietly. "I think this may be a little big for you," she says.

Rachel smiles and tucks her hands up into the sleeves. "Maybe," she admits. "But it's warm and comforting, and he doesn't mind."

Aviva laughs again. "I'm sure he doesn't."

Rachel doesn't know what that means and she's afraid to ask.

They talk a little bit, and Hannah texts Rachel from Noah's phone. Apparently Noah and Mike got into a little scuffle and Noah pulled Mike's shirt up over his head. Rachel just laughs and replies, telling Hannah to make sure Noah doesn't hurt himself, not that the girl can do anything about it. She hears a few minutes later that Noah scored a goal, and she smiles, because she did make him promise to get one for her. He told her it doesn't work that way, but asked her what his reward would be anyway.

Now she has to come up with one.

She looks over at Aviva and sees tears in the woman's eyes.

"What? What is it?" Rachel asks worriedly. "Are you in pain?"

"No, no," the woman says, shaking her head. "I'm just all emotional." Rachel doesn't know what to say to that, so she just keeps her mouth closed when Aviva takes her hand. "You're good to both of them. For both of them."

Rachel ducks her head. She doesn't like this conversation already. She's sensed one of these talks would be coming, but she doesn't want to have it.

"Please, don't," Rachel says quietly. Aviva squeezes her hand. "I don't want to talk like this."

"Honey," Aviva says. It's like a warning or something, telling Rachel to stop denying what's going to happen here. "You know you don't have to be here, but you still are."

"I do," Rachel insists, almost defensive. "I'm just scared of what happens...after."

"Me, too," Aviva admits for the first time. "Less so now that I know you're not going anywhere."

Rachel shakes her head. That's not entirely the truth. She's going back to New York soon, and she and Noah aren't in a relationship, much less a committed one.

(It's funny how she can tell herself that lie.)

"I just think he's not...Sometimes I think he's in denial," Rachel says quietly. She hates talking about him behind his back, but it's how she feels and she's tired of pretending it's not happening. "And that it's just going to hit him really hard all at once."

There's a beat of silence and Rachel looks at Aviva to try and gauge her reaction. She just has a sad, little smile on and says, "Come here," and Rachel leans into her motherly embrace. "You two need to stop dancing around one another."

She's never talked to Rachel about this before, not really.

"Maybe."

"Not maybe."

"It's just hard," Rachel admits, and it sounds like the lamest thing she could ever see. "With distance and everything, and...He doesn't need anything else to worry about right now."

"He worries about you anyway," Aviva says. "And what he needs is you."

Rachel's heart beats hard in her chest and she knows it's the truth, but to have someone else point it out just makes it more real. "I need him, too."

She might as well have just said she loves him.

She's not sure how long they sit there like that, but the movie ends and shortly after. The front door opens and they hear Noah and Hannah come in, and Rachel pulls away and tries to make it look like she hasn't been crying intermittently for however long.

Before she can get up off the bed, Aviva touches her knee and Rachel looks back to her.

"Don't let him get away with anything, because he's smarter than that and you're better than that."

She thinks she knows what that means. She's not sure what to do with it.

... ... ...

He's getting really fucking sick of her leaving. She's been doing it way too long and he wants her to stop it. Part of him wishes she wasn't so fucking talented so she couldn't justify being in New York and going for it and trying to make shit happen. If she'd just fucking _stay_ with him, he'd keep her as long as he could and...Fuck. He thinks he'd just be happier with her there, because he's always happier when she's around.

He kinda wants to drive her back to New York, but her flight is booked and he needs to make sure Hannah's shit's all sorted out to start school in a few days. So he's just standing in the entryway to her house and her dads are upstairs, giving them space to say goodbye.

She's currently got her arms around his neck and she's standing on her toes, and he's gonna take advantage of this shit 'cause he takes his opportunities when they come to him. He guides her into the living room and lays her down on the couch with him on top of her, and kisses her as good as he knows how (which is really damn good, thank you very much). Her flight doesn't leave for a few hours and all he's thinking is that if she'd let him, he'd totally give her something to relax her for her flight. Like an orgasm or three.

"Don't go," he says.

He thinks it's the first time he's ever said it out loud.

"Noah," she whispers, eyes closed tight.

"No, shut up. Just...Fuck." He presses his face against her neck and she holds him tighter. "I like you here." He runs his hand over her hip and upward so it's resting over her ribs. "I know you have to go, but...just...Don't."

She goes anyway, and she doesn't say she'll see him soon even though they both know it's true.

He makes sure Hannah's got some dinner, and that his mom's all set up for the night, then he goes out with Finn and tells him he needs to get fucking drunk and not to ask questions, and Finn just pats him on the back and buys the first round.

Yeah, maybe doing this on the day she leaves is pretty transparent, but he doesn't really even care anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

Anytime she calls him now and he doesn't answer, she worries herself sick wondering why. Is it his mother? Has something happened? Is he drinking his weight in Jack Daniels to try and cope? Is Hannah alright? And she'll stress and stress until he calls her back and lets her know things are fine and she gets to hear his voice.

So when she calls on a Tuesday around 7:30 and gets no answer, she holds her phone in her hand until it rings and his name is on the screen.

"What's up, baby?" he asks.

Now she's mad.

"Are you kidding me? You know I worry! Why don't you answer your stupid phone?"

"Whoa. Calm down," he says, and she wants to beat him with her shoe or something for being so nonchalant. "I was busy."

"Too busy to even text me back to say you'd talk to me later?" she asks. She knows he can probably picture how she's standing right now, hand on her hip.

"Uh. Yeah. Kinda."

"Well, what were you doing?"

He had better have a good reason.

"I was uh...Just...You know," he says.

"No, I don't know," she snaps at him.

"Fuck, you are so hot right now," he tells her. She rolls her eyes. "I was just thinking about you."

_Oh_.

She knows what that means and it makes her pulse race and her cheeks warm up.

"Oh."

"Yeah." She can hear his lazy smirk. God, she misses that. "You were so good, too."

"Noah," she says, laughing quietly.

"'S'true. Had you against the wall, like that time..."

"Shut up!" she cries. "God, don't...Just stop."

"Turning you on?" he asks.

She hates that there's no one in the world who knows her better than he does sometimes.

"No."

"Liar," he laughs. "Honestly, though. How do you even resist me, baby?"

This is the problem. They're friends who kiss and are maybe in love with each other, and the only thing stopping it from being a true relationship is the fact that they aren't having sex, even though he thinks about it, apparently, and she knows she does, too. _He_ knows she does.

"It's harder than you think," she says quietly.

"That's what she said."

She laughs again and lays down on her bed. "That makes it easier."

"That's what she said!"

He's laughing like a teenage boy at his own joke, and if it wasn't so damned endearing, she'd be angrier with him.

"Stop making it so dirty!"

"That's what she said."

She hangs up on him and he's still laughing when he calls her back to apologize.

He gives her a little update. Hannah got 88% on her science project and his mom had a rough day but started getting a little better at the end of it. She hears the sadness in his voice as they talk about it, though, and so she talks about herself for a while until he's not so depressed anymore.

She almost says I love you at the end of the call, and he texts her as she's trying to get to sleep. It's something dirty and it does nothing to turn her mind (or the rest of her) off.

Honestly? Some days she really doesn't know how she resists him.

... ... ...

His mom is admitted to hospital in February and it takes three days for him to tell Rachel. She'll just worry and come home and he doesn't know what's happening, and as much as he wants her here with him, he doesn't want to fuck up her shit, either. Plus, he's just really trying to deal with this and some days he can't decide if having her around would be good or bad.

Part of him feels like he'll just fucking lose it if he has her around to lose it to. She'll just...she'll let him feel everything and not have to put up a front. As it is, he still has to take care of his sister and talk to doctors and try to call all his stupid relatives who all of a sudden give a shit.

He's just had a long day at the hospital with his mom and his phone rings. He really doesn't want to answer, so he doesn't, but she calls back right away and now he's the one who's worried, so he picks up and doesn't say anything and just waits for whatever she's going to say.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks and she's crying, and it makes him feel like an asshole. "I had to hear it from my dad."

"Sorry."

It's lame, but it's the best he can come up with.

"You should have told me."

"Yeah. Fuck. I know."

There's silence, and he just wants to hang up because he can't fucking handle anymore silence. He hates it. He wants her to say something that'll make any or all of this make sense, and she's being all quiet and it's stupid.

"How is she?"

"Fine." He sighs and lays back on his bed. "Not fine."

"I'm coming home," she says, all determinedly.

"No, you're not," he tells her. Maybe it's a little too harsh, but he can't fucking deal with her skipping more classes because of him. "Don't."

"You didn't want me to leave and now you don't want me to come back?"

She sounds pissed and maybe she has a right, but this isn't about her, and it's not about the fact that he's an idiot who can't tell her how he actually feels, just tells her he wants her around sometimes. Fuck. He wonders why she's even still talking to him after all this bullshit, all they've been through.

Instead he just says, "Not yet," and he knows she'll understand why he wants it this way.

He knows he's going to need her a lot more really soon.

... ... ...

She stands in the kitchen in her black dress and watches him from across the room, the way his shoulders slope down beneath his white dress shirt and how he hugs relatives and listens more than he speaks.

She _hates_ today.

Finn and Mike are sitting at the kitchen table with Hannah, subtly trying to get her to smile, and Rachel shoots Mike an appreciative glance. He just winks back at her and it almost makes her cry.

Everything almost makes her cry.

She's standing in her not-boyfriend's house, mourning the loss of her not-boyfriend's mother, and everything about it is wrong. Everything. Everything from the fact that she's here at all for this occasion to the fact that he's still her not-boyfriend.

She's sick of that. She's tired of pretending she doesn't want to say all the important words to him and hear him say them back. She's really sick of them acting like this is just a friendship when everyone already knows it's not. Yesterday Hannah called Rachel 'my brother's girlfriend' to one of the neighbours and Rachel liked the sound of it so much that she didn't make any corrections. Not to mention, Hannah is sorting through enough without trying to figure out what Rachel is if she's not Noah's girlfriend.

Santana comes over and actually offers Rachel a hug, and maybe that's the biggest indicator of how huge all this really is. All her old glee club friends know she's close enough to Noah to have been close with Aviva and offer their sympathies to her, as well as him. Kurt gave her a beautiful handmade card, and Quinn actually held her hand during the service earlier.

He finally makes his way into the kitchen, looks over to where Hannah's sitting with her back to him with his friends entertaining her. He walks right over to Rachel and, obviously not caring who's around to see them, wraps his arms tight around her and pushes her back against the counter.

"Hey," he says.

They haven't had much of a chance to talk since they woke up this morning and got ready together in his bedroom. She obviously knows why this is, just wishes there was more she could do for him.

"Hi," she echoes quietly.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asks. She shakes her head at him, but he slides his hand into her hair and his thumb teases at her hairline just behind her ear, and she realizes she'll do whatever he needs right now. "C'mon. I just need to get out of here."

"Okay," she whispers.

He briefly talks to Finn and she can tell he's asking his friend to stay with Hannah, even after everyone's gone. Then Noah takes her hand in one of his, grabs her jacket with the other, and pulls her out the back door of the house. He opens his truck's door for her, since the thing is falling apart and barely opens at the best of times. It's been snowing all morning and it's cold, and he blows into his hands as he walks around the front of the truck before getting in and turning on the heat to full blast. Her fathers are at his house and she knows he's taking them to hers before he's even pulled off his street.

He grabs her hand and laughs softly when he realizes she's wearing mittens now. "They were in my pocket," she explains. He nods and she feels silly, but then he holds her hand tighter and doesn't let go until they're pulling into her driveway.

He starts up the stairs to her room before she's even locked the door. She slips off her heels and follows him, relishing in the way the carpet feels beneath her aching feet. When she steps into her room he's tugging at his tie, but having trouble. She walks over and takes the silk in her hands, loosens the knot gently as he watches her face. She slides the fabric over his shirt and sets it on her dresser, and suddenly his fingers are digging into her waist and he's pulling her closer. He buries his face in her hair, and she's getting used to this, the way he holds her like this. He's been doing it a lot the past few days.

But she knows everything's just hit him like a ton of bricks today, with his extended family coming in and people he's never even met talking to him about his mom like they somehow knew her better than he did.

He pulls away after a moment and lays back on her bed.

She needs to make him better somehow, and he's been telling her for days that she's doing it just by being here, but it doesn't seem like nearly enough and she hates feeling helpless.

So she walks over to the bed and hikes up the skirt of her dress, then straddles his hips and leans down to kiss him, his face in her hands and her hair falling over one of her shoulders.

He looks up at her, says her name and lets his hands slide up and down her sides before settling on her hips. He pushes her forward a bit and she feels him begin to harden beneath her.

"Let me," she whispers against his lips. Her hands slide down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt as she goes.

"Rachel, you..." She kisses him and rolls her hips, and he groans and pushes up against her.

"Let me," she repeats, more firmly.

Then his hands are beneath her dress, tugging at her panties, and he rolls her beneath him.

It's slow and quiet, which she almost deems miraculous because it's been so long since they did this last. He treats her like she might break if he moves too abruptly, and she kisses him softer than she has to. He makes sure they come together and she whispers his name as his hand kneads at her thigh.

And she can't see herself ever sharing a bed with anyone who isn't him.

... ... ...

He wakes up in Rachel's bed and it's dark outside, but there's light coming from the bedside table. Her sleeping face is right in front of him and her legs are tangled with his. They're both naked and he realizes it wasn't a dream. In a way it's good because that means they really did sleep together. In a way it's shitty because it means his mom's still dead.

He pushes his fingers through Rachel's hair gently, gets it away from her face but doesn't stop after because her hair is always so soft and he likes doing it. He's trying not to think about the conversation he had with his mom a few days before she died, but it's really the only thing going through his head. She pretty much called him out on this thing with Rachel, asked him what the hell he's waiting for. He said something about it being Rachel's call, and she said, "Noah, that girl has been in love with you for years. She knows what she wants."

And no, Rachel's never admitted that she loves him, but it's not like he hasn't kind of known it. She's always been around, since he was 18 or maybe before then, and she's...she's just his girl, kind of the same way she thinks he's her man or something. And neither of them is wrong, either. Because he doesn't want anyone else and he knows for a fact that she doesn't. He tried to explain to his mom that they're living two totally different lives right now and she basically told him to cut the bullshit and own up to the fact that he wants Rachel all the time no matter what. She also said, "Distance isn't a mountain, Noah, and if it was, there are airplanes that take you right over." Yeah, she was losing lucidity at the end a little bit, but somehow that made sense too.

New York isn't that far. He's gotta stay in Lima full time and Rachel needs to be in New York, but it's just a plane ride away. Fuck, a train or a bus or whatever. He and Hannah could go in the summer, and Rachel can visit him. It's not that big a deal. Maybe when he was in Montana it was, because that's way far, but Ohio is closer. Plus, he's not a stupid kid with his head shoved up his ass anymore. He's got responsibilities and he's grown up a hell of a lot this year. He wants Rachel around him when he figures things out and does something with his life. Hell, he wants her around even if he never does anything worth mentioning ever again. (He also knows she won't let him get away with that shit, either.)

So today sucked and she made him feel better, not just because it was sex and he loves that, but because she showed up and took care of things. She made sure Hannah's dress was ironed and her hair was done. She had her dads handle all the catering stuff. She bitched out the florist for putting daisies in the arrangement when there weren't supposed to be any there 'cause his mom hated them.

Then there's the fact that she finally seemed to see that they're so much better when they're not pretending they aren't a couple. He honestly didn't expect it when he took her out of his house and brought her here, and his attempts to stop her weren't really that serious. She knew he needed to be close to her (to someone, but especially her) and she gave that to him with no questions asked. That's probably because he's not exactly hiding his emotions well.

Goddamn. If his mom could see it, Rachel probably can, too.

(And he'll never forget laughing with stupid fucking tears in his eyes when his mom said, "Marry her or I'll come back here and kick your tuchus.")

He doesn't know about marriage, but he knows he's not fucking around anymore.

So he kisses Rachel's face until she's awake, and he smiles against her lips when she lets out this little sound he loves that she makes every goddamn morning.

"Hi."

She smiles and closes her eyes slowly before opening them again. "I love waking up with you," she admits sleepily.

He kisses her again and pulls her closer. She shivers against the cold, so he tugs the blankets up further. "Yeah. Same." He turns his head to look at the clock behind him and laughs. "It's 10:00."

"At night?"

He laughs and kisses her. "Yeah, at night. 'S'dark out."

"Hmm." Fuck, he _loves_ that noise.

"Hey, Rach?" he says quietly, trying to get her to wake up just a little more. She pushes herself closer. He loses his nerve, though, and forgets what he was going to say altogether when she opens her eyes. "Hi."

She lets out this sleepy little giggle and he presses his nose against hers. "I don't know if we should get up or go back to sleep."

He teases at her lips until she whines. "We could stay in bed."

He doesn't know if she really gets it until he moves his hand down her side and over her hip, then pushes it between her legs.

"I like that idea," she admits. He presses his hand against her. "_Noah._"

"Yeah," he murmurs, pushing her onto her back. "Yeah, it's a good idea."

He's fucking himself over because he's just going to miss her way more once she's gone again, but he doesn't care when he has her here right now.

... ... ...

Her last morning in Lima, she wakes up alone in his bed wearing nothing but his tee shirt. She pulls back the covers and peeks into the hall, then runs across, even though her shirt is well long enough to cover her ass. She doesn't need to confuse Hannah. Or scar the girl or something.

She steps into the bathroom and shuts the door quietly, brushes her teeth quickly and twists her hair up, holds it in place with a clip. She sees the hickey on the inside of her left thigh, and the one just below her right hip. She didn't complain when he was putting them there and she won't complain now. She doesn't need to be marked to know she's his, that's all. Still she finds looking at those spots gives her a rush of something she can't follow through on now.

Besides, where is he?

She goes back to his room and pulls on a pair of panties from the bag she's been keeping on his dresser, a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt she's basically been living in. This house has always been kept cooler than she's used to. Plus, she likes wearing things that smell like him. She wasn't even annoyed when, last time she visited, he called her on that. And this is the sweater she was wearing that last really good day with Aviva, so it means something to her and she's already told Noah never to get rid of it.

She heads down the stairs and she can hear Noah singing quietly in the kitchen. She loves that he does that when no one else is around. It's some song she thinks is by Pearl Jam or Audioslave or something. He's putting dishes away and doesn't hear her come into the room, so she slides her hands around his waist and he laughs softly and turns around, leans back against the counter.

"'Morning, Princess," he says teasingly.

She'll never tell him how much she loves that nickname or he's likely to stop using it. It only comes out sometimes and usually when he's trying to make fun of her.

"You could have woken me up."

He shrugs his shoulder and turns around again to grab her a mug. She knows it's more just so he can avoid eye contact as he says, "You have a flight later," like that's some reason she needs to sleep until 9:30.

He hands her a cup of coffee and she tucks her hand into the front pocket of his jeans to keep him from walking away. "Noah."

"Whatever."

He tries to turn away again, but she won't let him. "Stop that," she says, brow furrowed. "Don't do that."

"C'mon, Rach. Let's just fuckin' have breakfast, okay?" he says, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips.

"No," she says petulantly. "You're being a brat."

"Says the brat!"

She glares at him and steps back. "Why are you being like this?" she asks, shaking her head.

"Oh, I dunno!" he shouts, rolling his eyes. "Maybe 'cause you're fucking leaving. Again."

"You knew I was," she says quietly. "I know that people leaving you right now is kind of a sensitive issue."

"Don't," he says dangerously. "Don't make this about that." She sighs and closes her eyes. Whether or not he wants to acknowledge it, she's right and the two are connected. "I'm just fucking sick of, like, saying goodbye to you."

"It's not easy for me, either," she argues.

She hates that they're arguing at all, especially right now. She figures he has some anger and aggression to work out, she just didn't think he'd do it by picking a fight with her when she's leaving in a matter of hours.

"Coulda fooled me," he mumbles.

Now she's mad. She hates him for that, for making it seem like he's the only one who feels anything when they're apart. They've been doing this stupid thing for years and it's not fair of him to imply that she doesn't hate it just as much as he does right now.

"Really?" she asks, laughing quietly. "Because it's not like I've ever called you, _crying_ about how much I miss you, and it's not like I text you every day and talk to you as often as I can. I guess none of that means I'd rather be with my boyfriend instead of alone somewhere else!" And she's crying and she hates herself for it, and he looks too stunned by what she's said to do much of anything. "Yes, I called you my boyfriend. Get used to it, because that's what you are and that's what I want you to be."

She watches the grin he gives her and waits for him to say something more. All he does is take the coffee mug from her hand and set it on the counter. She's nervous. She's said too much and she'll cry even harder if he wants her to take it back or if he thinks she's jumped to conclusions. She knows she hasn't, but rationality isn't exactly winning.

"Okay," he says.

She just stares at him. "Okay?" she asks incredulously. He shrugs one shoulder and she throws her hands in the air. "I say I want us to be together and you say _okay_? Jerk!"

He grabs her wrists, chuckling, and kisses her to shut her up. For once, she's thankful.

"Calm down," he laughs. She pouts and he kisses her again. "I guess if you're gonna get all demanding about it, I'll be your boyfriend and shit."

She shakes her head at him and lets him hug her, even though she kind of wants to punch him for doing that to her. "That makes me your girlfriend."

"Yeah, babe. Figured that out on my own."

"Well!" she shouts. He laughs again. "Apparently you need help with these things sometimes."

He pulls her close and slides his hands under her shirt. "Not this time," he says, voice deep as he kisses along her jaw. She lets out a sound and grabs onto his shirt. "Fuck, baby, I've wanted this."

He doesn't say how badly, and he doesn't say how long. That's okay. She can guess.

When he pushes her back against the table and lifts her up onto it, she wants to protest and tell him to stop. It's incredibly difficult to do when he's sliding his hand up under her shirt to cup her breast, moaning when he realizes she's not wearing a bra. He's kissing her and she wants him to, but he has a sister who could walk in any second. If Rachel thought just the tee shirt would scar Hannah, she doesn't even want to imagine what _this_ would do to the girl.

"Wait," Rachel says breathlessly. He doesn't stop and she's not surprised. "Where's..." She thinks better of mentioning his sister's name while he's pulling down the zipper of her jeans. "Are we alone?"

"Yeah," he answers, then drags his tongue down the side of her neck before pulling off her sweatshirt. "She's at Joan's."

Rachel parts her legs for him and he grins and pushes her down so she's laying on her back, then tugs at her jeans and panties until they're off and she pulls her tee shirt over her head. He maneuvers her until she's exactly how he wants her, then kisses her as he unbuttons his pants. She's gotten used to it over the years, the way he always seems to have some kind of plan for sex. That makes him sound like some kind of sex nerd, but he's not. Sometimes she can just see him working it out, thinking dirty things, until he knows how he's going to take her and puts her in exactly the position he needs her in to fulfill the little fantasy he just played out in his mind. It's ridiculously sexy and she kind of loves him for it.

Maybe this is the worst place in the entire house for them to do this, especially given that there are no blinds covering the window above the sink, but then he murmurs against her stomach about how much he's going to miss her and she can't find it in her to care.


	9. Chapter 9

Rachel not being in Lima sucks and he hates it. She calls him from LaGuardia and it's loud and he can barely hear anything she says, but he catches on that she landed okay and she's on her way to her apartment. Then she's in a cab and she says something fucking cute about making a playlist during her flight and all the songs remind her of him. And he makes her promise to text him again when she gets to her place. Because New York City is fucking crazy, not because he's a pussy and already misses her or anything.

He doesn't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but missing her isn't even the shittiest thing he's dealing with. Of course he's still not really over his mom passing away and stuff. He's trying to get Hannah back on track, but she's having a way harder time than even he is. It's to be expected, he guesses, since she's younger and it's been just she and his mom for a few years now. So it's not like he doesn't get it, he just doesn't really know how the hell to get her through it.

Her teachers are 'concerned', which pisses him off, because what did they expect? Did they just think she was going to take a week off for the funeral, go back to school and be over the fact that her mom just died? They're not really doing anything to help her, either, and he's pissed about it. Sure, they're being kind of sensitive or whatever, and he talks to Hannah about it (as much as she'll open up to him anyway) to make sure things aren't really bad at school. They aren't, it's just that she doesn't give a shit anymore. She's a super smart kid, but, as Rachel says, Hannah's probably just finding it hard to find perspective; school seems like the stupidest shit in the world compared to all the other crap she's dealing with. That's how he puts it anyway, and when he reiterated that to Rachel, she sighed and said, "Yes, if you think you have to explain it like that." So he's totally right.

The day Hannah gets sent home for fighting, he's proud, then mad. He goes to the school to get her and have a stupid fucking talk with her principal, and it turns out some kid called her an orphan and she lost it on him. Yeah, she kicked a _boy's_ ass. He can't even stop himself from calling the kid a dick and saying he would have done the same thing. The principal isn't happy with him for that but he doesn't give a fuck. He also makes a comment about how if anyone at this fucking school would be sensitive to what Hannah's going through, maybe she could get through it a little quicker.

He feels really fucking good when he slams the door on the way out after they hear Hannah has an in-school suspension for the next three days.

She's quiet in the car and he has to stop by the bank to do something. She decides to stay in the car and he wants to make sure she's not gonna start crying or something, so he hands her a $5 and tells her to go buy him a coffee and get herself whatever she wants from the coffee shop across the street.

They get home and she starts bawling and throws herself on the couch, and he never really knew what to do with her when he could just pass her off on his mom, so he's kinda fucked right now.

He calls Rachel. All he does when she picks up is say, "Just wait," and hand the phone to Hannah, who looks at him like he's stupid before she says hello and runs upstairs.

When she comes back down, she's smiling and gabbing about The Vampire Diaries and some dude named Tyler and how he's_ 'so cool!'_ and some chick named Bonnie needs to stop being _'so damn ugly'_. He hears Rachel tell Hannah not to use that word, but he just gives his sister a high five in passing for being hilarious.

"What'd you say to her?" he asks Rachel later, after Hannah is in bed and he's exhausted and needs to talk to his girl.

"Nothing."

"Rach," he whines, "come on. What is this, some secret club or something? Damn."

She giggles, which _still _makes him smile, and says, "I just asked her if her mother would want her fighting anyone over something like that." Fuck, she's smart. No, his mom would legit be pissed and ground the shit out of Hannah for something like this. She'd be all '_Don't let gossip and hurtful words affect you when they're not true'_. "Perspective, Noah."

He doesn't know what the fuck he's thinking when he says it, but the next words out of his mouth are, "You're gonna be a fucking awesome mom someday."

He means it, so whatever, but she's all quiet on the line.

"Thank you," she says after a little too long.

He doesn't know if her kids will be his kids too, but to be honest, it's kind of starting to look that way.

... ... ...

Rachel doesn't go to Lima for Spring Break. Mostly because she has midterms to do and papers to turn in and she actually needs to do school work, which she knows she won't do if Noah is around. He's kind of the best and worst distraction, depending on how you look at it.

She knows he's mad at her for it, and she's mad at herself for it, and kind of mad at him for being mad. She needs to finish her year strongly and he knows that, and he just got his job at the best (only) sports clinic in town. It's just administrative work for now, but it's a foot in the door for when he finishes school (whenever that might be) and he can't be asking for time off to entertain her, and if he's not going to entertain her she's not going to spend the money and make the trip.

Maybe she's being selfish, wanting to put school first, but she's always been selfish and he knows that. Their conversations are short and tense for almost a week, until she calls him and tells him flat out that he's being a complete ass and she's sick of it. He says, "Well, kill me for wanting to fucking see you!" and she rolls her eyes and asks if he really feels like she doesn't want to see him.

He tells her to get out of his head and she laughs and it's kind of over.

"Still sucks," he mumbles at the end of their call. She promises to make it up to him, and he says, "I don't know what that means, but I like the way it sounds," in this sexy voice she loves, and she says goodnight a little breathier than usual.

In April, her dads come to visit. They tell her they've been checking in on Noah and Hannah, and she knows this, obviously. They've had the Puckermans over for dinner a couple times, and one day when Noah had to work late and had no one else to call, he called her dad to pick Hannah up from her after-school volleyball practice and keep her until Noah could get there. She loves her fathers for taking care of those two so well. It's not that she doubts Noah can do it himself, it's just that she knows him and if he doesn't take a break every now and again, he's going to lose it. That's why she encourages him to go see Finn and Brittany one weekend when Hannah stays with her aunt, and why she insists he go out with Mike when Hannah is on an overnight school trip to Dayton.

"You know, most chicks wouldn't want their dudes going out like this," he says when he calls her half-drunk from a bar where he's hanging out with Mike.

She laughs into the phone as she walks through Manhattan with one of her friends. "Don't call me a chick, and I know you're not out picking up girls." She pauses and he doesn't say anything. "Right?"

"Fuck you. No."

"I'm just checking!"

"Whatever. You know you're the only girl I want," he says.

She really does love that his emotional filter is almost entirely removed after he's had a few drinks. "Am I?"

"Hmm."

She hears Mike laughing at something, then she hears Noah curse and Tina's voice, and she feels better knowing Tina is there to take care of the guys when they inevitably drink too much.

"Okay, I have to go. I'm jut going into the subway."

"'Kay, baby. I like you," he says, then laughs when she does. "Be safe."

Her heart races more than it should. She knows he worries, but he doesn't say much about it usually. He'll tell her to make sure she doesn't stay out late, or say she has to watch out for crazies, but that's different. She loves it when he comes right out and says something like that.

She loves him, and she desperately wants them to graduate from 'I like you' to something more.

... ... ...

She comes home for three weeks in the summer to see him and also watch Finn and Brittany get married. Maybe to see her dads, too, but it's probably mostly about him so that's what he's going to believe.

(And tell people.)

She's graduated from school now, but she's still living in New York and he's trying his hardest not to be bitter about it. Some days are better than others. He knows why she's doing it, he gets it and supports it or whatever, but part of him still really feels like she could be home if she wanted. (She doesn't want, and that's the whole problem.)

They have a stupid fucking fight for almost the entire first week, because after the first night (and it's _so_ good and they don't sleep at all) he wakes up and she's getting dressed and has plans 'with the girls' and he's pissed at her for ditching him for stupid fucking shopping and lattés or whatever. He hasn't seen her in months and she's fucking off and leaving him already and he doesn't get why she doesn't see that it's a stupid thing to do.

He feels like a fucking girl and he's basically pouting when he rolls over and tells her to get out if she's going. She tells him to stop acting like a child and in hindsight, flipping her off probably isn't the best idea he's ever had.

He's not totally surprised when she doesn't call him for three days, or when she hangs up on him when he calls her after that. He goes to her house and her dad just says, "Whatever you did, she told me not to let you in. Sorry, kid." Yeah, they're good dads and great guys, and he can't really blame them for listening to her, but fuck, he just wants to get over this bullshit so they can hang out and stuff.

He sees her the night of the rehearsal dinner. She's in this green dress that's cut down low between her tits and hits only halfway down her thigh, and the silver heels she has on would make him drool if he was a lesser man. Her hair...he just wants to bury his hands in it. He wants to take her the fuck out of here and apologize for being a dick and remind her why they're so damn good together when he's not being an asshole.

He walks up to her and she turns her back on him at the bar. And he'd complain about it, but her ass looks fucking killer and he loves the way this dress fits. He slides his hand around her hip and leans into her a little to grab his scotch off the bar. She takes a sip of her martini, and her hair tickles his arm and he gets a stellar view of her chest.

"Baby," he murmurs. She leans back against him and he knows he's in. "I'm fucking sorry, okay?" She sighs and shakes her head. "I mean it. I am. I was a dick and you don't deserve that."

"No, I don't."

The first three words she's spoken to him in a damn week and she's basically being a bitch. Only not really because he deserves it and she's pissed for a good reason.

"Missed you," he says, pressing his lips to the hinge of her jaw. "I hate missing you."

"Well then maybe you shouldn't make obscene gestures and upset me," she says quietly, and he realizes he actually _hurt_ her, which he hates.

"Sorry," he says quietly into her ear. "I promise never to give you the finger, unless it's the way you love."

"Noah," she laughs, sliding her hand over his. He loves that she does it. "I suppose that's an alright promise."

"Let's get out of here."

"We just got here and the rehearsal isn't starting for another hour."

He turns her around so she's facing him (fucking beautiful girl). "Let me show you what I can do with a whole hour," he says.

She smiles, but shakes her head at him, leans up to kiss him and says, "Nice try, Noah, but I'm not leaving here until the end of the night, so don't ask me again."

Fuck his life.

He puts both hands on her hips, kisses her a little harder. "You look awesome, by the way," he says. She kisses the corner of his mouth and thanks him, then grabs his hand and pulls him towards their friends.

By the end of the night she's sitting on his lap and she's buzzed from the gin she's been drinking, and when she runs her fingers through the hair above his hair and whispers, "Take me home," he wastes no time saying goodbye and hauling her ass outta that restaurant.

She's laying beneath him on his bed and his sister is asleep down the hall, and Rachel gives him this look that he swears has to mean she loves him, too. He swears it.

... ... ...

It doesn't take much at all to get him to dance with her at the wedding. She just leans over in her seat, wraps her arm around his shoulders and asks if he'll dance with her, and he's pulling her out onto the floor.

And earlier, walking down the aisle with him standing there already, she caught his eye and he smiled this little smile and looked down, and her stomach fluttered and she almost cried. It's not her wedding and god only knows when she'll have hers, but that moment was perfect and she loves him for giving it to her.

She laughs as he spins her around the floor, and he's making fun of the whole thing; Brittany's huge dress, Finn's tie being perpetually crooked, the music, the tiny food portions, the "Christianity of all this shit." She calls him ridiculous and cynical, and he says the best thing about the whole day is her and how hot she looks. She'll take that compliment.

They leave shortly after Finn and Brittany do. Her dads took Hannah home with them earlier, so she and Noah have Quinn, their DD, drop them off at his house shortly after 2:00 in the morning. It takes him less than two minutes before he has her naked, but nothing after that goes very quickly. He makes sure of it.

She's laying in his arms and thinking about their long day, and she says she thinks she'll keep the dress. He kisses her, so she thinks he approves of that idea.

"I had a lot of fun with you today," she says, and part of her is hoping he won't make a vulgar joke about their last couple hours alone.

She means the whole thing, from the first moment he saw her and she saw him, to getting their photographs taken with the rest of the wedding party, to him feeding her cake (only when no one was looking and she wanted a piece of his chocolate in exchange for a bite of her vanilla). She loved dancing with him and how his arm felt wrapped around the back of her chair, and all the things he said in his best man speech.

"Yeah," he says. "Same." He strokes his thumb over the side of her breast as innocently as he's ever done anything. "You wanna get married someday?"

He's drunk. He has to be. Never mind that their last drinks were hours ago and they've most likely worked off all the alcohol. And she doesn't really know if he means ever, to anyone, or ever, to him.

She answers, sort of, the question she's hoping for.

"Maybe you should tell me you love me first."

He laughs quietly and says, "I do love you," and she pulls away abruptly, grasping at something to cover herself with. "What?"

"I didn't think you'd actually say it now!" she admits, eyes wide as she looks at him.

He grabs her and pulls her back so she's laying down with him again. "Well, I did and I do, so say it back already."

Her smile feels like it might crack her face in two and she's never felt so affectionate towards him as she does when she gives him an open mouthed kiss and he returns it closed. It's not awkward and it doesn't make her question anything. It just tells her he doesn't expect her to sleep with him now just because he's said the words. Of course she's going to, and he really must know that. And it doesn't take him long to kiss her the way he usually does. She rolls onto her back, pulling him on top of her, and it feels like seconds before he's hard and between her thighs again and she's saying his name quietly and begging him to push into her already.

"Say it," he says, nipping at her jaw. She turns her head to catch his lips, but he just teases her and takes her bottom one between his briefly before letting it go. "Baby, say it."

She knows this is some kind of game right now, but not a funny one. He wants to hear the words or he won't do what they both want. She pushes her hips towards his, because if he's going to tease her, she's going to tease him.

"Noah."

"Fuck, Rachel," he groans. "Come on. You're...Stop playing."

She smiles a little as she looks up at him, then takes his face in her hands and brushes her thumbs over his cheeks. "You know I do."

He presses against her gently, and she fights to keep her eyes from falling closed. "Do what?"

"God, Noah," she breathes out, drawing his face closer. "I love you."

She falls asleep with his fingers running through her hair and she feels bad closing her eyes because she doesn't want to miss a second of this night with him.

... ... ...

She ends up staying an extra week and he feels pretty fucking smug about it, actually. He begged her (jokingly, mostly) to change her flight and stay in Lima instead of going back to New York to do nothing. The way he sees it, her doing him is way better. A month is the longest he's had her since the summer after high school, and that's really fucked up, if he thinks too hard about it.

She practically lives at his house, which isn't really anything new. She stays and hangs out with Hannah while he goes to work, and he knows the two of them get up to all sorts of girly shit he doesn't have the capacity or ability to do. But coming home to fresh baked cookies or lasagna on the table isn't exactly the worst thing that's ever happened to him. Sometimes Rachel will even have a beer waiting for him, or better yet, be drinking one herself and offer him a sip. (Or he steals from her sometimes, but whatever.)

He notices Hannah's a lot happier when Rachel is around. She laughs a lot more and says the funniest shit ever, and one night after Rachel's gone to bed early (for reasons he doesn't really get) Hannah glares at him, crosses her arms and says, "You better keep her or you're a total moron."

He laughs and tells her to get her ass upstairs and go to bed already.

Rachel's still awake when he slips into his room and closes the door behind him. She's sitting up in bed reading some book. He doesn't catch the title because he's too busy noticing how fucking good she looks in his bed, in her satin nightgown with her hair pulled up and her glass of water on the bedside table. She looks like she belongs there and he thinks she really does.

He pulls off his shirt and steps out of his jeans, slips into bed and plucks the book from her hands. She grabs it back and marks her page, sets it on the table next to her side of the bed.

"Hannah says I should keep you," he murmurs against her arm, kissing her because he can and he wants to.

She laughs a little and sinks down into the mattress. "And what are your thoughts on that?"

"Shut up," he laughs, kissing her.

"You know, it's just going to be harder this time," she says. She covers his mouth before he can say something vulgar. "When I leave."

Yeah, there's still a joke in there but it doesn't seem so funny now.

"Maybe."

"I won't be back until Thanksgiving, probably."

He doesn't know why the fuck she's talking about this now when she doesn't leave for another three days and he doesn't want to. Her talking about leaving is almost as bad as her actually doing it. He doesn't want to hear about it and he thinks it's pretty dumb of her to think he wants to have a conversation with her when she's wearing this satin thing that makes him want to devour her.

"Hey," he says quietly as he kisses along her shoulder to her neck. "Shut up."

She laughs softly and tries to open her mouth to say something, but he kisses her instead and puts his hand between her legs.

"We'll never talk if you keep doing this," she says, eyes closed as she rolls her hips against his hand. "_Noah._"

He figures he'll just have to make her say his name like that as many times as possible in the next three days in an effort to tide him over until she's back again.

It's a good plan.

(It'll never work.)

... ... ...

Rachel cries once she's back in her apartment in New York, and she hates it, but she can't help it. She's happier in Lima, with Noah, and she's not even going to deny that anymore. She wants to be with him all the time, and she knows everything's better when they're together. She loves him and wants a real relationship with him, and even though neither of them says anything about it, they both have to be wondering how it'll ever work. She wants New York and fame and music and he has responsibilities in a small town she could never, ever do anything in. There's nothing there for her, but at the same time there's the most important thing. It breaks her heart most days, because she can't see him moving he and Hannah to New York and she wouldn't ask him to.

So what does that mean for them?

Hannah is the one who calls her that night. Rachel asks where Noah is and Hannah says he's in the kitchen cleaning up. Hannah's supposed to be sleeping, but she's got a phone in her room and Rachel's number on speed dial.

They both cry when Hannah says she misses Rachel already and it's better when she's 'home'.

"I know, sweetie," Rachel says. "I'll be back soon. I promise."

She doesn't know if it's true, but she says it because it makes them both feel better.

"Noah's barely talked all day. It's weird." Rachel's heart may be breaking or something. She loves him so much it's nearly painful. "I told him to stop being a baby about it."

They both laugh and Rachel wipes her face. "Good. Tell him I said the same thing."

"Do you think he'll be mad I called you?" Hannah asks.

And this is when Rachel realizes she'll probably do anything for either of them, because she completely means it when she says, "Hannah, you can call me any time you like. I don't care what he says." Then she adds, "But no, he won't be mad," for good measure.

Brittany and Santana come visit her in September. She's not sure why, just that they each took long weekends off from work and school, respectively, and decided to go to New York. Rachel's not against the idea of having them stay at her place, and she's completely surprised to find that Santana is an incredibly considerate guest and Brittany is quite the little housekeeper. The girl says Finn loves it and the three of them laugh because none of the guys they know are particularly adept at housework. Noah has someone come once every 10 days to clean the house.

When she drops that little fact into conversation, Santana arches her brow and smiles, and it's not the mean, conniving smile she used to wear almost permanently in high school.

"What?" Rachel asks warily.

"You guys are still really good together."

Rachel shrugs one shoulder. "Yes."

It's the truth.

Brittany's giggling over the rim of her margarita glass as she says, "When you get married, can I be your flower girl?" and they all dissolve into fits of giggles. Santana pulls her phone out and texts Noah despite Rachel's loud, serious, drunken protests, and tells him the whole thing.

He texts Rachel back instead of Santana, and Rachel laughs when she sees _'Wtf?'_ written out on the screen of her phone.

She types back, _'I don't know. I love you though'_ and he says he knows and tells her to stop drinking.

The girls spend the next morning nursing their hangovers, and the afternoon shopping. Santana and Brittany are trying to get her to buy a dress she can't necessarily afford and certainly doesn't need, and Brittany snaps a picture with her phone and sends it to Noah. Rachel isn't entirely sure when they all became friends, but she doesn't hate it. She also doesn't hate when Noah calls Brittany's phone to say how 'fucking hot' Rachel looks. (So maybe that's why she buys the dress.) Santana buys them dinner at Butter because she's always hearing about the place on television and wants to say she ate there. The three of them are approached by several men who apparently don't think the rings on Brittany's finger mean anything. Rachel says she's in a relationship and Santana finds reasons not to let any of them buy her drinks.

"What are you hiding?" Rachel asks. She knows it makes it sound like she knows Santana better than she actually does, but turning down free alcohol from attractive men is definitely out of character.

"Nothing."

Brittany laughs and shakes her head. "She's dating this guy."

"Shut up," Santana groans, rolling her eyes. "It's nothing. It's just been a few months or whatever."

So Rachel spends the rest of their dinner gossiping with the girls, and she loves it, this, having friends.

Noah calls her one night in October and she can tell he's had a rough day. He's been having a lot of them lately. Between working, caring for Hannah, and trying to do well in the two courses he's enrolled in to finish out his major, she thinks some days he's barely keeping his head above water, and she really wishes she were there to help him. He sounds exhausted on the phone, and when Hannah asks for help with her homework, he just hands her the phone and Rachel does what she can to help the girl, even as she worries the whole time about him.

"Noah," she says after, when he's back on the line.

"Just...Today fucking sucked."

"I'm sorry."

He usually says _'it's not your fault'_, but he doesn't this time.

Instead, he sighs and she feels like she might cry. (She does that more these days than she did before.) "My dad called here today," he explains. "Left a fucking voicemail."

"Oh, my god."

"Yeah. Just left a message like it's normal for him to call and ask me to call him back. Fucking...Hannah doesn't even know his voice!" he shouts. She'd tell him to stop yelling, but she knows he needs to do it and it'll make him feel better. "I'm not fucking calling him."

"Noah, you should..."

"Don't," he seethes. She's afraid of that tone of voice and she doesn't know what she'd do if she were standing in front of him and he used it. "Don't fucking take his side."

"I'm not taking his side!" she shouts back. She's angry with him for assuming she'd do that. "I wouldn't anyway, but you know I'm always on your side. I just think...Maybe he wants to help again."

"I don't need it."

"Noah," she says quietly. She knows for a fact that he does need the help, but he's too proud to say it. It's noble of him to want to do this all himself, but he doesn't seem to get, no matter how many times she's told him, that there's no shame in asking for help. "Just hear him out."

"I don't want to. I don't want to talk to him," he says. He's not being petulant, he just doesn't want to do it and she really can't blame him. He didn't hear from the man for over 10 years and now he's calling the house, and she knows why that's upsetting. "I won't."

"Then I will."

There's silence on the line and she's afraid he's going to hate her for saying that. Of course, not _really_ hate her, but there are things she knows he hates, and talking about his father is one of them. She can almost picture him at home, grinding his teeth at the thought of her talking to the man he hates. He's got a protective streak a mile wide and she knows he doesn't want anything to happen to her, so he's not likely to put her into any situation where she could get hurt, even emotionally. If it's avoidable, he's going to make sure it doesn't happen. And god, she loves him for that.

"No."

"This isn't a negotiation," she says, because if he's going to be stubborn, so is she. "I'll call him."

"The fuck you will!" he shouts. "You're not talking to him. _No._"

She sighs and shakes her head and looks out her window and down onto the street. "Then suck it up and call him, Noah. If he's going to offer you money, you're going to take it. And if it's anything else, you need to know."

"Why are you riding me so hard about this? Damn."

"Because," she whispers. "Because I know you won't stop thinking about it until you know."

She's right and she knows it. He doesn't say goodbye before he hangs up, and her heart is basically broken until he texts her an hour later and says he loves her 'even if she's a pain in the ass'.

... ... ...

He's pissed at her and she's annoying him. He feels bad for thinking it, but he's fucking _mad_ at her for even suggesting she make a phone call to his asshole, deadbeat dad. Fucking ridiculous. She had to know there was (_is_) no fucking way he'd let her go through with that, and if she was saying that shit just to make him do it himself, that's a shitty move and he's mad at her for making it. Still, he feels like an asshole for hanging up on her like that, so he texts back that he loves her and shit, because even when he's pissed off, that part's still true.

It takes him three days to make the call, and he hardly talks to Rachel during that time because he knows she'll just be on his ass about it. It sucks, 'cause he wants to talk to her and she's probably all sad that he's not, but he just can't deal with her right now along with everything else. Maybe that makes him a pussy but he doesn't care. Most days he just does what he has to do to get by, and hearing her list off all the reasons she's disappointed in him or whatever wouldn't help.

His dad wants to give them more money. He's torn about whether to accept, but they need it and Rachel was right when she said he would. So he says it's fine and his dad commits to sending $1,000 a month to Puck's bank account, and it's going to help a fucking lot, but he doesn't bother saying thank you. The way he sees it, the guy fucked off for years and did nothing, so he's not going to get any gratitude for surrendering some of the money he should have been paying all along.

"I...Maybe someday I could come..."

"Fuck no," Puck interrupts, like the dude's crazy for even thinking it. "No offense, but the money's all we need from you. You didn't want to be around before, so you don't get to be around now."

"Noah, I just want to make sure you're okay."

It sounds sincere, but it's also years too late and Puck doesn't give a shit what the guy wants.

"We're fine. I'm handling it."

They talk for a couple more minutes, but it's all tense and shit and then Puck hears the guy's other kids in the background and he gets pissed and says he has to go. He hangs up the phone and basically immediately calls Rachel and tells her everything, down to the boy and girl he heard through the line. She apologizes, but says she's so proud of him for calling, and it makes him feel better.

"I love you," he says randomly when she's in the middle of a story about going to Central Park with her friends and playing Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of guys she'd never met.

He doesn't know why the fuck she'd play Ultimate Frisbee in the first place, let alone with a bunch of Columbia frat assholes, but he doesn't like the sound of it. She's hot and it's not a secret, and he knows people probably check her out and she probably gets other offers, but he doesn't want to hear about them because it pisses him off enough when he _doesn't_ hear about them.

"I know," she says, confused.

"Say it back."

She laughs quietly and says, "Deja vu." He groans and hates her for bringing that up, because sometimes he still feels like a douchebag for practically begging her to say it that first time. "Noah, are you jealous?"

"_Yeah_," he says, like she should already have known he would be. "These dudes get to be around you and I don't, and if you tell me any of them fucking hit on you, I'm gonna be so pissed."

She giggles again and doesn't confirm or deny any of that.

"I love you," she says quietly. "You have absolutely nothing to worry about."

He smiles and starts thinking how it's really fucked that just talking to her can make his day so much better. "No?"

"Of course not, you idiot," she says. She sounds mad and it makes him laugh. "You really think I waited around for you as long as I did only to trade you in for someone else?" He thinks it's rhetorical, so he doesn't answer. "Face it, Noah, you're stuck with me now."

He doesn't tell her, but he thinks that sounds pretty fucking amazing, actually.

He doesn't tell her because he thinks she knows already.


	10. Chapter 10

Thanksgiving was always one of his mother's favourite holidays, so Rachel insists they host dinner at his house. She wants to make it as close to tradition as possible, so she says she's cooking and he's going to deal with it and she's not taking no for an answer.

The first night she's back, she brings over a turkey and a bunch of stuff she's going to need to spend the next day cooking. He tells her he's going to spend all night making it nearly impossible for her to even get out of bed in the morning, and she believes him.

Her fathers are coming over, and Rachel's never cooked a full turkey dinner before, and she's nervous about it. Noah doesn't make it easy on her at all, either. He spends most of the morning trying to lure her back into bed, and relentlessly flirts with her in the kitchen until she pushes a beer into his hand and tells him to go watch football like a real man. He glares at her questioning his manhood, kisses her hard and leaves the room. Hannah just laughs and continues peeling potatoes. Her fathers are coming in a couple hours and bringing pies and their famous mac and cheese, which she thinks Noah is irrationally excited about.

She laughs every time she hears him shouting at the television, and Hannah rolls her eyes.

"He's basically stupid, you know that, right?" Hannah says.

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"No, whatever. I mean, I get that, you, like, are into him and stuff, but I don't understand _why_." Hannah shrugs her shoulder and continues chopping carrots, the next task she was assigned. Rachel smiles. She's not exactly just 'into him'. "You could do better."

"Hannah!" Rachel cries laughingly.

"You could!"

Rachel thinks about it for a second, about she and Noah, and Noah and herself as separate people. Yes, he's crass and vulgar and has all the emotional depth of a wading pool. He says the wrong things at exactly the wrong times, and sometimes he makes her so mad she thinks she could hit him as hard as she can and it wouldn't be enough. (Not that she'd _ever_ get physical with him, but still.) He drives her to the brink of insanity, then says something so sweet or touches her delicately or murmurs that he loves her against her skin and she's forgiving him. And she's not the easiest person to deal with either, she knows. She's overbearing and bossy and stubborn, and sometimes she's still just the slightest bit of a prude, even after all these years of him corrupting her, or at least attempting to. She can be completely insensitive to someone's feelings if they don't serve her needs, and she can tell - he has a tone - when she's on his last nerve and he wants to scream at her.

She takes Hannah's hand and leads her to the table, sits them down. This is one of those times she wishes Aviva was here (there are a lot of those times) to explain things like love and relationships and how they work. Hannah isn't a small child, but she's at the age where dating means kissing a boy on the lips and holding his hand in the hall at school.

"Sweetie," Rachel starts. She sighs and smiles. "Maybe you're right." They both laugh quietly and Rachel presses on. "I'm sure there's some perfect, amazing, wonderful man out there who would buy me flowers every Friday and take me to dinner and be all those things they tell you you're supposed to want." Hannah looks confused. Rachel's going to lay this all out really simply. "Those men are boring." They both laugh again. "Your brother might be a complete heathen, but..." She bites her lip and can't believe she's going to say this to his little sister, of all people. "But no one loves me like he does, and I'll never love anyone like I love him."

They're words she's never even told him, doesn't want to for fear of what he'll say in return. They've said little things and made hints towards a future, but 'forever' hasn't ever been thrown around and she might as well have just said the word. Hannah doesn't necessarily look convinced, but Rachel's never been more sure of anything in her life.

"I still think it's weird," Hannah says. Rachel laughs and swallows the lump in her throat.

She wishes she could stay for more than four days.

... ... ...

He sits through dinner with her dads and it's awesome. She sits next to him and rubs his thigh under the table or holds his hand over it, sips her wine and blushes when everyone compliments her on the amazing meal she made. She says Hannah was a huge help, but he knows it's bullshit because Rachel basically did all the big stuff. Everything's perfect and there's this moment when he honestly thinks this might be the first of a lot of Thanksgivings like this. He's been in a shitty mood all day because his mom isn't here, but Rachel makes that better and he doesn't know why that even surprises him anymore; she's been doing it for years.

He and her dads clean up the kitchen while she and Hannah go watch some Taylor Swift special on TV or something. He doesn't get why practically every girl ever made is obsessed with that chick, regardless of age, but whatever. He lets them do their thing and sips scotch with her dads while they take twice as long as normal to clean the kitchen.

The thing is, he feels like they kind of love him. Not, like, in a weird way or anything, they just like him for Rachel. Granted, he's a way better guy than he was in high school or even when they first started fucking around before college. He's grown up a whole lot in the past few years and her dads totally see that. One of them makes a comment about how happy Rachel is when she's around him, and he kind of wants to puff up with pride, because he loves doing that for her like she does it with him. Maybe that's why they're so good together; they're just happier with one another than they are with anyone else.

And you know what? He'd totally feel like a jerkoff thinking like that if he hadn't overheard her talking to his sister in the kitchen this afternoon.

Yeah, he could just let that sit with him and not make a big thing of it, but then he's laying in bed with Rachel and she's got her laptop open on her knees as she checks her email or facebook or whatever. He's playing guitar and she's smiling at him when he plays something she likes, and he can't keep it to himself anymore.

"Heard you today," he says casually. "With Han."

She blushes red and closes her eyes. "Oh."

He puts his guitar down and leans over to kiss her shoulder, up her neck. He nibbles on her ear and kisses her jaw before he says, "It's not weird," like a promise and she lets out a quiet laugh. "Just stop being such a girl about it."

She laughs harder and closes her computer, which is basically what he was going for in the first place. He takes it from her and sets it on his desk because she likes to keep it there since it's safer further away from the bed (fuck yeah, it is). He's trying to kiss her, but she puts her hand on his chest and the other on his face and makes him look her right in the eye as he settles himself half on top of her.

"Noah," she whispers. When she talks again her voice is a little bit louder. "I just...I want you to know how much I really love you. Because I do," she says eagerly. "I love you so...I never thought I could this much."

He furrows his brow. He hates that his first instinct is to ask what she did wrong and why she's sucking up, but the way she's looking at him says that maybe she really does just want him to know.

"Where's this coming from?" he asks.

She shrugs one shoulder and draws him a little closer. "It's just the truth."

It's true for him, too, but it's not like he's gonna actually say that to her. He just nods and kisses her and hopes she understands what he means.

And it'd be really great if his heart would stop fucking around in his chest and just calm the hell down.

... ... ...

She's gone on more auditions than she wants to admit.

Well, than she has admitted.

She can't tell her fathers because they'll 'comfort' her with trite words and clichés about how her time will come and anything could happen any day, and it just takes one person to hear her sing and love her and she'll have her name in lights.

She's starting to resent them for always telling her those things, all her life, and it's not fair to them. It's not fair to her, though, to be nearly 23 and realizing that maybe she's _not_ the most talented person in New York and maybe she _won't_ just be a star and win a Tony and sing on stage with Sean Hayes someday.

She's crying after another rejection (the third in the past two weeks) and Noah's calling her. She ignores the phone and he texts. She can't blame him for being persistent, since she really doesn't ever ignore his calls and she'd told him she'd be home. All his text says is '_You ok?'_ and she loves him for assuming she's not.

She doesn't call him back until she's calmed down enough to not sound like a complete wreck. She asks about his day and he mentions school being rough on him but he's managing and he turned in the paper he's been working on. Hannah is good and her dads stopped in this evening for dinner. She smiles. She loves that they're all kind of a family.

She just hates that she's excluded from so many of the things they do.

She starts crying again and she knows he doesn't have any kind of clue as to why.

"Do you love me?" she asks. She sounds needy and desperate, which is okay because that's how she feels.

"What? Yeah. Rachel, what the hell?"

"Nothing. I just needed to hear it from you," she says.

_From anyone._

"Baby, come on. I know you. What's going on?" he asks. She wipes the tears away from her cheeks but doesn't say anything.

"Sometimes...I'm just having a really bad day, I guess," she admits. She knows she should tell him about the auditions and the rejections and the fact that she feels like she's going nowhere and doesn't know how to turn it around.

"Sorry," he says. "You want me to do something?"

She closes her eyes and sinks back into her mattress. "Tell me I'm the best," she says, a smile on her face.

"Best at what?"

"Noah!" she cries, a definite whine in her voice. "At everything."

He chuckles and the sound of it makes her smile wider than it should. "You are, Rach. You are the best at everything."

"Now you're just saying that," she pouts.

"Am not." She thinks she hears his belt buckle opening, and she rolls her eyes even if she's biting her lip. "I mean it."

She believes him, even if she shouldn't. She doesn't know if he'd ever lie to her about it, but it's pretty trivial anyway, and the other thing she made him say earlier is more important anyway.

At the end of their conversation he seems reluctant to hang up.

"You sure you're okay?" he asks seriously. "'Cause you don't seem like yourself and it's freaking me out."

"I guess I just try to hide these days from you," she admits. It's the truth. She doesn't usually let on anything's really bothering her. Not big things like this anyway.

"Why?"

"You have more important issues to worry about than whether or not I have a rough day," she says. She hears him scoff and she doesn't know why.

"That's bullshit," he spits at her. "Fucking tell me these things."

"Noah."

"No. That's stupid. You know how much you do for me? You...Fuck, Rach. Sometimes I feel like you don't even need me."

She has no idea what to say to that, because he's an idiot if he honestly thinks that. And if he does, he's incredibly stupid for _ever_ saying that to her. He's wrong and most days she doesn't know how she'd even function without him. He's practically the biggest part of her, and she's questioning herself, wondering why he doesn't know and understand that, how she hasn't shown him that over the years.

"I do," she insists. "You're stupid if you think I don't."

"You just do your own thing out there and I stay here and wait for you to fuckin' call me and tell me I'm doing a good thing here," he admits. "You know how...I hate that. I just wanna do something for you, Rachel."

She can probably count on one hand the amount of times she's ever heard him speak so candidly.

"What do you think you're doing right now?" she asks quietly. He's just breathing into the phone and she wishes she was with him. She loves everything so much more when she's with him. "Hearing you say all that is the best thing that's happened to me all day."

She can hear him smiling when he mumbles, "Whatever," and they stay on the phone even longer, until she has to go to bed so she can be up for work in the morning.

She still doesn't tell him about the auditions, but maybe that's because they just seem a little less important now.

... ... ...

The truth is, he's worried about her. It's not anything new, really, worrying about her. It's just _more_ now. She sounds different on the phone when he can reach her, and sometimes she's too tired to even talk. Or at least that's what she says. Obviously he knows there's no one else, or anything dumb like that, but he knows there's something up with her that she's not saying.

He knows it's harder for her this year, because a lot of her friends left New York and went back to where they came from or moved onto other cities. The other friends she had are now her competition, and judging from some of the stories she's told him they're a bunch of bitches too. She tells him about one of them not letting her know the call time for an open audition had changed, even though Rachel told the chick about that audition in the first place.

He knows she hates her job. She didn't major in theater and graduate with honours so she could sell tickets to shows she's talented enough to be in. It's not fair to her and he can't blame her for hating it. She doesn't want to dress in business clothes and go to an office and talk on the phone to rich people who should be buying tickets to see her, but aren't. It's just hard to talk to her sometimes because she sounds so fucking sad and he hates it when she's like that.

She comes home for the holidays and doesn't even go to her dads' place. He picks her up from the airport and takes her straight to his house, and her suitcase ends up on his bedroom floor where it's been almost every time she's come home for the past couple years. It just belongs there and there's not even a question anymore. Her dads totally understand and make jokes about working out a schedule to see her or whatever.

The first night, Hannah's at a friend's house (he totally didn't even plan that shit, either) and Rachel's sitting between his legs on the couch with her back to his chest. He loves these skinny jeans she's wearing and the red sweater she's got on, even if it is a turtleneck and she's not showing enough skin. Her hair's all up and messy, though, and she's rocking the whole sexy librarian thing, which he most definitely approves of. Plus, she's, you know, between his legs and they're watching Blue Bloods and he kinda loves this show, so it's not at all a bad scene.

"Would you still love me if I wasn't a singer?" she asks out of nowhere after Donnie Wahlberg goes all bad cop on some jackass.

"What?" he asks, mostly because this is random and stuff.

She sits up and turns so she can look at him, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and he's still pretty confused. "I just need to know."

He furrows his brow a little more, but nods and says, "Yeah, baby. What the hell?"

She sighs and looks down, and when she looks back at him there are tears in her eyes and he hates it, this Rachel. He wants his Rachel back. His Rachel wouldn't ever doubt that everyone in the fucking universe loved her. This Rachel is doubting that even _he_ does, which is just about the most fucked up thing he's ever seen.

"I don't know if I'm ever going to be...Noah, what if I don't make it?"

She's looking at him with these wide, shiny, teary eyes, and she honestly thinks it's something like the end of the world if she's not singing and dancing on Broadway within the next year.

Goddamn, she could be a hotel maid and he'd still love her. Kind of a given at this point that he doesn't give a shit what she does.

"Rach, you don't have to make it."

As soon as he's said it, he realizes what he's done and she's crying harder, and he wonders for a second if he's ever met her at all, because that shit was completely the wrong thing to say. She stands up and brushes at her cheeks, and whatever, he checks out her stomach where her sweater rides up.

"Yes, I do!" she shouts.

Right. They're having a 'conversation'.

"No, that's not...I didn't mean it like that." He grabs her wrist and tugs her back down onto the couch. She's only home for five days this time, because of her stupid job, and her not being in direct contact with him at all times is basically the worst thing ever. "I just meant it doesn't matter to me." She narrows her eyes. "Fuck! No, it matters. It _does_. I mean you can be whatever you want to be and I'll be here."

Then, because she's not fucking random enough, she gets onto her knees between his legs, leans down and kisses him.

"Thank you."

"Okay, what the hell?" he asks, because he needs to know where all this is coming from.

She bites her lip and avoids his eyes and he braces himself for what's coming, because he knows this face and it always means she's kept something from him and is about to spill.

"I haven't been entirely honest about..." She stops, sniffles and looks at him. "I'm trying so hard, Noah, and no one wants me."

He puts the pieces together pretty quickly, slips his hand into her hair and pulls her down on top of him. She cries against him for a few minutes and he doesn't really know what to do to get her to stop, but he really wants her to.

"I do," he promises, lips brushing her temple. "I want you."

She kisses him and he knows that means as much to her as he wanted it to.

... ... ...

She ends up telling him everything the next day. She gives him a shortlist of the shows she's auditioned for, and the multitude of ways she's been rejected and let down. He almost becomes irate when she tells him someone told her to drop 10 pounds. ("You're fucking _perfect_, Rachel, and those fuckers don't even know what they're doing!") She tells him her job is sucking the life from her and he tells her she should do open mics or something, just to be in front of an audience. He tells her she 'lives for that shit' and maybe he's right.

"I wish I had you to accompany me," she says, smiling at him. It's difficult when she feels so terrible about herself and he looks so mad about it. He grunts something and doesn't acknowledge it any further than that. She bites her lip and looks at him. "You know, New York would be better if you were there."

He glances at her. "Rachel."

He knows her well enough, she supposes, that he knows what she's getting at.

"I know. You...You can't come and be with me," she says sadly. It shouldn't hurt to say it out loud, not when she's known it all along. He runs his fingers through her hair. "I just love being with you, that's all."

A tear slips down her cheek because she knows they're coming up to some kind of crossroads in their relationship. There's no turning back now, obviously, but she doesn't know how they'll be together if they can't even live in the same place. And there's nothing in Lima for her. She'd have to go back to school and take a second major, and she doesn't want to do that. She's a performer and that's what she wants to do. Lima Community Theater would be happy to have her, but she'd hate them all and resent every single second of it. She can't live that life. She's cut out for more and they all know it.

Noah is, too, he just has these things to take care of first. Like his sister. Rachel loves Hannah and would never, ever want anything bad to happen to her, and Noah is doing an amazing job, considering it shouldn't be his job in the first place. She'd never ask him to uproot Hannah, but that doesn't mean she can't want it, does it?

"What are we going to do?" she asks.

"I dunno. We'll figure it out."

That's not a good enough answer for her, and she pulls away from him and looks at him incredulously. "You know, at some point, Noah, you're actually going to have to work out a_ plan_. You can't just take it as it comes and hope for the best!"

She gets up when she sees how mad he is already, and she watches his jaw clench and unclench as he grinds his teeth. She hates it when he does that. She knows she's crossed a line, but she doesn't need him to be so angry about it.

"That's kinda all I can do right now, Rachel, and you fucking know that," he tells her.

It's true, to an extent, but it's also not true at all. At this rate it's going to take him another year to finish his major. That's fine, but he's always saying he doesn't make enough money, and that he wants more hours at work. Well, he'd have full time hours if he finished his program, and they'd pay him more, too. If he could somehow work in another credit or...

She doesn't know. She just knows she wants more for him than just working to make ends meet. He's better than that. She's always thought so.

Then again, maybe she's being a hypocrite. The difference is she's _trying_.

"I'm going to go before one of us says something they can't take back," she says quietly. She heads for the stairs and he's right behind her.

"Where're you going?"

"My dads', I guess."

"Rachel, wait," he says gruffly, grabbing her arm. He pushes her against the wall gently and she looks up at him. She knows he doesn't want to fight with her either. They're both stressed and worrying about these very issues. They've always had a hard time discussing these types of things, the things that really bother them. "Don't."

"Noah, I can't stay here and argue with you. All I did was mention that I'd be happier if I was with you all the time," she points out. "I didn't _ask_ you to move to New York."

"I know that," he says, rolling his eyes. "But I'm not the only one who _could_ move."

She gives him the coldest glare she can manage and pushes him away so she can go the rest of the way up the stairs. "I can't believe you'd say that. What the hell am I going to do here? What, Noah? Work at the bank? Maybe if I'm lucky I could get my teacher's license and corral tone-deaf 10 year olds in the elementary school choir!"

Hannah is home and no doubt hearing all this. Rachel should care more than she does.

"Calm down," he says. His voice is steady and stern, and she hates it as much as she loves it. (She loves it because she can hear him as a father, speaking to a child that way after he or she misbehaves. She hates herself for thinking about that right now.) "I didn't ask you to move back here, either, you know. I'm just pointing out that we've both got our own shit going on right now."

She's in his room now - what they've started calling their room - and throwing some things into a small bag. She's hell bent on leaving. All she wants him to do is give her a reason to stay.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," she says as she stuffs her makeup bag in with the rest of her things. "I can't talk about this anymore."

"Don't fucking leave, baby." He walks up behind her and puts his arms around hers so she stops packing and he's just hugging her with his lips pressed to her shoulder. "C'mon. Just...Don't fucking go."

"You're making me so mad," she admits quietly. "I didn't...I didn't _mean_ anything by that and now it's this huge fight."

"I said we'd figure it out and you jumped down my throat."

She doesn't want to laugh. They're as bad as each other. They have these ridiculous 10 minute fights and then they're back to making jokes and laughing.

"I just want to be in love with you," she says. She turns in his arms and he nods, kisses her and pushes her bag off the bed and onto the floor. She'd be angry if she didn't know that's just his way of telling her he's not letting her go anywhere. "I can do that no matter where I am."

He smiles and shakes his head. "Pretty fucking lame, Rachel."

"Shut up," she pouts. "It's true."

He laughs when she tries to punch him lightly in the ribs. "Yeah. I know." He kisses her and loosens his hold on her, and Hannah walks to just inside the door, makes a face and lets out a disgusted noise, saying something about them being fine and how she'll be in the basement. Noah laughs and Rachel blushes and presses her face against his chest. "Maybe we could visit you. March break or something."

She pulls away from him and she knows she's smiling a little too much by the way he laughs. "Please? I would love that so much."

He says it depends on money and if he can get the time off and all that, and it really strikes her that they're in an adult relationship when he has to worry about things like that.

When it's dark and they're both attempting to fall asleep, she hears him sigh and asks him what's wrong.

"You," he tells her. "You're...Something's gonna happen." She feels herself falling for him even more. "You're the fucking best thing around, and it'll happen."

She loves him for saying that, but they haven't resolved anything and she's terrified the distance is going to ruin them.

... ... ...

The night before she goes back to New York, he gives her her present. He tells her it's her birthday, Hanukkah, and Christmas present all rolled into one. It's not even like it was that expensive or anything, but it's something he knows she wants and it'll mean the world to her and also prove that sometimes he actually listens when she starts rambling about girly shit he really, really doesn't give a fuck about.

But it's worked out well for him right now, even if he is nervous as fuck to hand it to her.

He puts the box in her hand and seriously thinks this was a bad idea and he should just take it back. But you can't put a ring box in a girl's hand and then steal it away again. They probably don't like that.

"It's not an engagement ring," he tells her frantically before the box is even open.

She looks at him, then down at the box, and when she opens it and sees the delicate gold band inside, she gasps a little and her eyes go wide. "Noah."

"I know...You said you wanted a pinky ring, and...I dunno. I kinda thought if anyone's giving you rings it should be me," he tells her.

"You're crazy," she laughs, shaking her head. "I love it. I can't believe you bought me this."

He shrugs his shoulder and takes the ring from the box, grabs her left hand and slips the ring onto her pinky.

All he can think is that maybe in a few years if they haven't killed one another, he could be doing this with a real ring and some kind of big promise or whatever.

For now he just tells her he loves her and that he'll see her whenever. She does that thing where she doesn't let go of his hand until the last possible second at the airport, and he doesn't even make fun of her for it, because he can feel the ring on her finger and it makes him feel awesome to know she's got something on her person to remind her of him.


	11. Chapter 11

Her coworker Steven plays guitar. He's not as good as Noah, but he's capable, and when she gives him a list of songs and asks if he'd be interested in playing with her, he gives her a list right back and tells her he's got a gig booked and they could use a co-lead singer to take some of the strain off their untrained vocalist. She thinks it over for about a minute, then asks him when and where and what the dress code is. He tells her to wear something hot and that they rehearse in this warehouse/rehearsal space. She feels very confident that she's going to need no more than a couple hours' practice with the band.

"I don't like this guy," Noah says when she tells him everything. "Sounds sketch."

"I'm doing what you suggested I do."

"No, I suggested you go to a fucking coffee shop and sing some fuckin' Lisa Loeb or whatever. You're playing in some Brooklyn bar with this hipster and his flannel wearing friends."

"You wear flannel all the time," she points out.

"Not the point!" She laughs and she hears him let out a breath. "Just be careful, okay? 'Cause I...Just be careful."

"I kind of love it when you get jealous, you know."

"I'm not jealous."

"Noah, this is me being sexy over the phone. Please try and keep up," she says, voice terse. He laughs and she smiles, despite her being annoyed with him for being slow on the uptake. You'd think the man would have phone sex down to an art by this point.

"Yeah, I'm kinda at Hannah's school 'cause they have this art show or something and one of her drawings is being gawked at or some shit."

"Noah!" she cries. She's not even embarrassed that she totally just admitted she wants him right now. "Why didn't you tell me her work is being displayed?"

"Dunno. Forgot," he says. "Jesus. Some of this stuff is straight up garbage. Like, I don't really get Picasso and shit, but it's not like it makes me physically want to puke, you know?"

"You're terrible!" she laughs. "They're children, Noah. You have to encourage their artistic talents or they'll fall by the wayside."

"Sometimes there's just no talent at all."

She laughs again and tries to picture him there, walking around the Lima Middle School gym or library, looking at paintings he has no interest in.

"You're wonderful for supporting her," she says after a moment. "I know she appreciates it."

"Yeah, well, she's actually not bad at the art thing," he says. "Jesus Christ. This one's so bad, Rach. I swear I've seen better shit than this floating in the sewer."

She giggles and leans back against her pillows again. "You spend a lot of time looking at things floating in sewers?"

"Shut up," he mumbles. "I gotta go, okay? I'm gonna call you later. Then you can be as...You can..."

"I love that you're censoring yourself for your surroundings," she says. She smiles and shifts her hips. She's wondering how late 'later' is. "If you don't call me soon, I'll have to start without you."

"Don't you fucking dare," he says lowly.

She laughs and says she loves him.

She wasn't entirely joking, though.

He calls her later that night. She tells him she loves him after, and he tells her he wishes he was there with her. He only ever really says things like that post-orgasm, when he can blame it on the endorphins and pretend he doesn't mean it as much as he does.

... ... ...

He keeps Hannah home from school when he wakes up and hears her crying in her bedroom. He doesn't even talk to her, just calls the school and tells him she won't be there and she'll catch up on her work on Monday.

He gets a few phone calls. Mostly it's relatives and close friends. Carole calls and talks, and Finn calls. Rachel's dads stop by with coffee and pastries and sit with him and talk a little bit about his mom and how amazing she was.

Hannah won't come out of her room. He's starting to get a little worried about it, actually. And he's coping. He's dealing with today. It sucks, yeah, knowing it's been exactly a year since their mom died, but he can't help her through it if she won't open her bedroom door and talk to him.

Santana calls him, then Quinn, and he really appreciates that, but he'd like it if everyone would just stop for a minute and give him a chance to talk to Rachel again. She called him first thing and sounded really sad herself, which he totally understands, because he knows she loved his mom. It's just that she's amazing with Hannah, and she'll know what to do or say or whatever.

She sounds like she's crying when he gets her on the phone. She tries to make it sound like she's not, and he wants to call her on it, but he doesn't.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

She's crying and she asks him if he's okay.

He wants to be honest with her, even if it sucks to admit this and she already knows without him saying a word. "I wish you were here."

"Me too," she whispers.

"You're...I dunno. You're upset, but Hannah's...I can't get her to talk," he says. Saying it out loud makes him feel like he's really no good at any of this. "I don't know if she'll talk to you."

"She will," Rachel says confidently.

She sounds so sure of it that he doesn't really have any choice but to believe her. He heads upstairs and taps gently on Hannah's door again, tells her Rachel wants to talk to her. She opens the door a crack and he hands her the phone before she shuts it again.

He doesn't know what the hell Rachel says to her - neither girl will tell him - but Hannah has a shower and comes downstairs for lunch and then they sit in her room for the rest of the day and watch movies. They unplug the phone and ignore the people that come to the door. Only his cell is on, and he has it set to vibrate, and that's just in case Rachel calls.

"I love her," Hannah says when he shows her a text from New York. He laughs a little and doesn't say anything. "She's, like, the best sister."

"She's alright." He can't say it with a straight face, and Hannah laughs.

She doesn't tell him not to mess it up, or ask any questions about anything. He likes that it's just a given that he and Rachel are going to be together for...

He doesn't know about forever, but it doesn't really sound all that bad to him. His mom told him to marry Rachel, and it's hard to pretend he doesn't want to.

... ... ...

She's having lunch with one of the few coworkers she can tolerate, other than Steven. She and Madeline are close enough at the office, but they haven't exactly spent a ton of time outside of work. Rachel isn't opposed to having more friends, so they sit at a little salad bar and bond over their failed veganism, successful vegetarianism, and men.

Madeline is engaged to a man she met in the waiting room at her gynecologist's office, and that story is hilarious and so random that Rachel can't help but laugh. Everyone knows Rachel has a long distance boyfriend, but no one really knows much more than that about her relationship with Noah, and she's not terribly upset by that. This thing between them has generally always been 'between them'. Even their friends don't know nearly all the details. She likes it that way, but Madeline asks, so Rachel starts telling bits and pieces of the story.

"Oh, my god. That's, like, a Nicholas Sparks novel," Madeline says as she dabs at her lips with her napkin. Rachel smiles and nods a little bit, tucks her hair behind her ear. Madeline leans on her elbows on the table and looks like she's fishing for gossip. "So what happens next?"

Rachel isn't sure.

"Things are perfect the way they are," Rachel answers.

It's not true. They aren't _perfect_, and she doesn't think they will be until they're in the same place at the same time. But they're young and there's time for all that.

She doesn't necessarily want to take it, though.

She's got two auditions coming up. They'll be the fourth and fifth this month, and she honestly thinks that if nothing comes of them...

She just wants to be closer to him, and she wants to be successful, too. There has to be a way she can have both.

... ... ...

He's always thought her dads were awesome. Like, they've always been good to him and never treated him like he's a dick or a delinquent or anything. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that first summer when he still had a mohawk and they both had to know he and Rachel weren't going to be some epic love story or some shit.

Well, no one thought at the time they would be.

But when they offer to keep Hannah over her March break so he can go visit Rachel, he's almost positive he'd kiss both of them if it wasn't creepy and wrong.

Okay, probably not. He hugs them, though, and tells them he appreciates it.

He just doesn't have the money for both he and Hannah to go, and she wants to, but it's not as vital. After he tells her he might go without her, she just shrugs her shoulder and tells him to go for it. Then she calls him a pussy for being 'so into' Rachel. He puts her in a headlock and contemplates telling her to watch her mouth, but whatever. He'd be kind of a hypocrite if he did that.

So Rachel's dad picks them up at home and drives him straight to the airport, then takes Hannah back to the Berry house with him. It's cool, too, because now he doesn't have to worry about who he's leaving Hannah with.

The flight seems really short, which is awesome, and Rachel looks incredible standing at the arrivals gate, chewing her thumbnail as she waits for him. There's no big, dramatic moment where she runs towards him or something lame like that, thank god, but she smiles really widely and puts her arms around his neck and they kiss for a while. He doesn't really give a fuck if anyone's around and watching him, because he hasn't seen her in a couple months.

They barely make it into her apartment before he's pulling clothes from her body. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't whispered in his ear in the cab and told him she's not wearing any panties under her jeans. It's not like he can control himself at the best of times, so he doesn't know why the fuck she'd tell him that, but he's not about to complain.

She has a show with 'her band' that first night. He's known this all along, but now that he's here with her he doesn't really want to leave her apartment or room or bed. Clothing should be optional. Nakedness should be encouraged. But after they eat Chinese in their underwear on her bed and shower together, she's pulling on a pair of jeans and telling him he'll have to wear more than just a towel to this bar.

He hasn't seen her perform in years.

Fuck, he's missed it.

He's not crazy about these guys she's playing with, but three of them are married and the other one has a girlfriend. The drummer is single, but he looks like Russel Brand on a bad day, so he knows Rachel'll never be into that loser. But they're good. _She's_ good. She's incredible. She sings songs he never would have thought she'd do, and the crowd fucking loves her. He loves her. He wishes he could be up there playing guitar with her.

Everyone tells her how amazing she is. She only blushes when he says it.

They go out to another bar for beers with her bandmates and their wives or whatever, and Rachel keeps her hand on the inside of his thigh basically the whole time. He has his arm around her, and it's nice to just act like a young guy again. He doesn't have to worry about school or work for a whole week, and he knows Hannah's fine. He can just hang out and be a regular guy and be with Rachel. He didn't realize how much he needed this.

They walk home after, and she's tired and a little tipsy, so she loops her arm through his and he feels fucking 17 again. Honestly, part of him wonders what would have happened if she and Finn had stayed broken up and he'd been able to date her when they were young and stupid and naive enough to make it work through college.

"Noah?" she says as they lay in her bed in the dark. She's right up against him and he really doesn't mind. "I love that you're here."

He really doesn't know what to say to that, and conversations like this usually start fights, which he really, really doesn't want, so he just kisses her temple and tells her to get some sleep.

She's taken the week off work, too, which is amazing because it means he doesn't have to entertain himself at all or watch her leave for work in the mornings.

They basically don't leave her bed for the first day, which he isn't complaining about at all. He doesn't hear her protesting it either. They turn their phones off and don't bother getting dressed, and they watch crappy television when they're not busy doing other things.

She seems a little different the next day, though. It's like she's pulling away or trying to hide something or...He doesn't know what's going on, but he doesn't like it.

"Hey," he says, reaching for her when she's in the kitchen making dinner. He's put up with this shit all day and he can't handle it anymore. She actually flinches when he touches her, and for a second he worries something's happened to her when he wasn't around to stop it. Then he remembers that if that were the case she probably wouldn't have just spent a day and a half with him inside her. "Rachel, what the fuck is going on in your head right now?"

"Nothing!" she shouts, dropping the spoon she was holding onto the counter. It rattles and falls to the floor, and he holds her tighter so she can't bend down and pick it up. "A lot. Everything."

"Tell me," he says, voice hoarse. He doesn't like secrets, especially not when she's the one keeping them. "What?"

She takes a deep breath and walks over to sit down at the table. He follows, but he doesn't want to. He's not a fan of sit-down conversations because they're usually the bad kind. He figures if she was breaking up with him, she wouldn't have wanted him here, or she'd at least have the decency to do it at the end of the week or something.

"I'm so confused. I don't know what to do, Noah," she admits. There are already tears in her eyes and she's gonna have to give him a little more to go on. Like, anything would be good. "I went on an audition a couple weeks ago, and then I got a callback. They wanted me to sing three songs, and then after that I went to the dance audition."

His chest puffs up a little bit with pride, because this is his girl and this is the best she's ever done here, the furthest she's gotten in the process. He fucking loves that she's not giving up. But he's still not getting why this is confusing for her.

"That's great, baby," he says. He pushes the hair off her face and it forces her to look at him, which is what he was going for.

"I got the part." She looks up at him and he totally doesn't get the tears. They're obviously not happy ones, but _she got the part_ so what the fuck is the problem here? He smiles at her and moves closer, but she puts her hand on his leg and he stops. "It's in London."

Oh.

Fuck.

"What?"

She closes her eyes, more tears falling, and shakes her head a little bit. "It's in London. It's basically the equivalent of Off-Broadway, but in London."

She needs to stop saying London, unless her doing it will make that place a hell of a lot closer.

The only thing he can really think is that she can't go. She can't go even further away, across a fucking ocean. He doesn't know how long this shit would last, but if it was a month, that'd be a month too long. New York is hard enough. London, with the time difference and her crazy schedule and everything; he doesn't know how they'd even make that work. But he doesn't want to be a dick or she'll be pissed, and if he doesn't support her he's the biggest asshole in the world. If she wants to go do this, he guesses there's really nothing he can do but _hate_ it.

"You're not saying anything," she says, wiping her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve. "You're mad."

"No," he says quickly. "No, I'm not mad. I'd never be fucking mad at you for doing something awesome." She laughs quietly but he can tell she doesn't really mean it. "Are you gonna do it?"

She hesitates.

_Fuck_.

"I don't know," she admits quietly. "The company would pay for my housing and everything, and it'd be a start, Noah. I'd have a credit to my name."

He sighs. "Yeah."

She pulls her hands away from him. "You don't want me to do it," she says, and she sounds angry, which isn't really fair. This has been a conversation for less than five minutes. It hasn't really even sunk in.

"I don't want you to go that far away, but if you wanna do it...I mean, fuck, Rachel. I'm not gonna stop you." She starts crying even harder, and he grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him until she gets up and sits across his lap. "Baby."

"I'm scared that if I go, everything will change." He nods. He gets that, and it's kind of what he's afraid of, too. "But that if I don't go, nothing will. I can't...Noah, I'm...this is killing me." He doesn't know what to do with that. She pulls away and looks at him. "Sometimes I feel like you're the only good thing I have, and I don't want to leave you."

"Well, you're not _leaving_ me. You'd be working." Fuck. Wait. Is she saying...? "You wouldn't break up with me, right?"

"No!" she says urgently, shaking her head. She puts his hand on his cheek and he smiles at that at least. "London is really far, and I don't know anyone there. I'd be there for at least a year, and...I just always wonder when _our_ life gets to start, you know? And now I'm thinking of going even further away, and it's not...I don't know what to do."

"I can't really tell you," he says. It's true. It's all up to her. It's her life and her choice, and he loves that she's thinking about him as she makes it, but she can up and leave to London for a year or however long, and he basically has no say in it. Well, maybe a little say. "I don't want you to."

He says it because it's true. Yeah, he said it already, but it's basically the only thing he can say without sounding like a total asshole. She nods her head and kisses him, and he doesn't know what any of that means, but she knows he'll support her whatever she decides to do, even if he hates that decision.

They've had plenty of chances to break up before, and they're not going to start taking them now.

... ... ...

She wakes up and he's sleeping on his stomach in her bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His hair is a mess and there's a line on his face, a crease from the pillow, from however he was laying before. He's got his one arm up under the pillow and the other just resting between their bodies. His lips are just slightly parted and she's watching his torso rise and fall with every breath he takes.

And she decides she's not going to London.

It may be the only role she's been offered, but he's so much more important than that, and being with him is better than any paycheck or standing ovation. She's not about to let him start believing otherwise. The distance is difficult enough as it is, and they don't need anything else between them, anything else to make it harder on them.

She wants to _marry_ this man, and she has to be in at least the same country as him in order for that to happen. Maybe other stars can make it work, but she and Puck are not them. They're not Idina and Taye, who have all the money in the world to travel back and forth and see one another. And even Idina moved to L.A. to be with him while he worked after her show wrapped in New York.

And it wouldn't be fair to him. She thinks that if he left and went halfway across the world in the name of a job, she'd be heartbroken, even if she did 'understand'. He'll support her whatever she decides, and she knows that, and that's what makes her want to do something that makes more sense for the both of them. If he was _telling_ her not to go, she'd be mad at him for it. He's just saying he doesn't _want_ her to, and there's a huge difference. He loves her and he wants to be close to her, and she loves him for that.

Sometimes it's still hard to believe that this man is the same boy she went to high school with, even though she knows exactly how much he's changed over the years. She was there for all of it, after all.

She spins the ring on her pinkie finger and watches him sleep, and when her thumb brushes against her ring finger, her heart races, thinking he's going to put a ring there someday, too. They haven't talked about it, but she knows he will.

When he blinks his eyes open and gives this gorgeous, tiny, little smile, she knows she needs to tell him what she's decided.

"I'm not going to London."

He lets out a hum, then, "Good." Then his eyes open all the way and he reaches for her. "Really?" he asks. She nods and slides her hand up his back, then smoothes out his hair. It really is a disaster. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she says, and she's never meant anything more. "I just love you, and I don't want..."

He kisses her before she can finish, pushes her onto her back. She parts her legs for him because it's the most natural thing in the world for her to do, and he murmurs that he loves her against her neck, and that, "London is stupid and I'm better," and she thinks he's saying it a little too smugly, but it's so adorable that she doesn't really care.

She doesn't necessarily disagree, either.

... ... ...

She gets a call for another audition when they're out shopping one day, and he thinks she should be excited or something. She explains that it's always the same thing and usually nothing comes of it anyway.

"Well, when you have that kind of attitude it's no wonder," he says. He regrets it immediately because she stops walking, but when he turns around to face her, she's actually smiling.

"Do you have any idea how much you just sounded like me?" she asks, giggling. He rolls his eyes. "And I always give 100%. Do you really think I wouldn't?"

"That's not what I said. Don't pick a fight."

She laughs again and slips her arm through his. "I'm not picking a fight. I'm just saying it's difficult to have a positive attitude when you know you're one of hundreds of people all doing the same thing."

"So do something different," he says, shrugging his shoulder.

"That easy?" she laughs.

He doesn't see why not. "I'll help you."

She smiles up at him and doesn't call him on the fact that he really has no fucking clue what he's doing.

But then they get to her apartment and she hands him his guitar, and she's totally serious about this. When he suggests she ditch one of the stupid Broadway songs she usually does and sing something totally different, she looks skeptical, then asks what he has in mind. Shit, he doesn't know. He just thinks if she'd just fucking loosen up a little bit and do something new, she'd have more fun and show off some of her personality or whatever.

So he plays guitar and helps her arrange a cover of some pop song until it doesn't make him want to jam a pen in his ear.

She thanks him for it by stripping her clothes off in her living room to some Janet Jackson song or something. She tells him he can't touch her until she says so. But he's never been good with taking orders, and as soon as his hands are on her she's changing her mind and begging him for more anyway.

God, he can't wait until they live together.

... ... ...

She's really happy he scheduled his flight in the evening so the last day he's there, they really do have a full day to spend together. They get about an inch of snow, which is really nothing, albeit strange for March, and use it as an excuse to stay inside all day and keep one another warm. They say it like that, as though they wouldn't have found some other reason to stay in her bed under the covers all day.

He's currently eating from a bag of Doritos and sipping a beer, and she's holding a glass of wine and accepting the few chips he holds against her lips until she opens her mouth. She doesn't make a habit of eating junk food, but it's hard not to when it's being fed to you by the naked man currently taking up residence in your bed.

It's 2:00 in the afternoon and this is his idea of 'sustenance'. He says he needs it before he can...

Even after being with him for so long, she still blushes sometimes when she thinks of the way he says things, the things he wants to do to her.

"What's with the face?" he asks, laughing as she takes a sip of her wine. "You're blushing."

"Nothing!"

"Liar. What?"

He already knows what she's thinking about. She can tell, and he's just being a jerk about it.

And sometimes she likes to surprise him.

So she somehow gets the courage to tell him exactly what she wants to do to him for a change, and he nearly chokes on his beer when the words slip past her lips. Apparently he's nourished enough now, because he's pulling her onto his lap and telling her to make good on that promise.

She does. Then he makes good on his.

"I don't want you to go," she says as they both watch the clock. They have a half hour before he has to leave to catch his flight on time.

He doesn't say anything to that, but he kisses her gently and nods. She just wants to keep him here with her and she's already trying to figure out how it might work if she could. She doesn't mention that, though, just kisses him at the security checkpoint at the airport and pretends it doesn't break her heart every time they do this. He knows anyway, but she likes to put on a brave face. He always does it for her.


	12. Chapter 12

By the end of June, he's finally finished his course and has a diploma. He's pretty fucking pissed off when his boss tells him that even though they _promised_ him he'd have a full time job when he was finished his major, there's nothing available for him right now. He's been working there for a fucking year and they're totally screwing him over. He feels like shit about it, like they really don't give a damn, and he's fucked. He needs money and experience, and he thinks it's really shitty of them to pull this shit on him after telling him all along he was doing great and is the type of employee they want working there. They have a funny way of showing it, to be honest.

He wants to quit, but he's talking to Rachel's dads about it at dinner one night and they convince him not to. They're right in that he needs to work in his field and there's nowhere else in town to do it, but he's pretty pissed off and doesn't feel valued at all. Plus, there's the money thing.

Then Brian says, "We have a position available at the office. It's part time and we could work around your schedule at the clinic."

So Puck thinks he couldn't love the Berrys more than he does right now.

He has to wear a shirt and tie, and he works in a little cubicle and basically pushes paper all day and answers the occasional phone call, but it's money and Brian has his back. Plus, Rachel tells him she always loved him in a tie. Not that she's there to see it or anything, but it helps. He doesn't mind hearing that shit from her, and certainly not in the voice she says it in. It's just that he's actually _at_ the office when she does, and her dad's door is open 10 feet away and she's being fucking ridiculously sexy for 11:00 in the morning. He knows she's at her office, too, so he doesn't know what the hell her deal is.

"I'm just bored," she tells him. "Talking to you is far more interesting than selling tickets to this ridiculous show."

He laughs at her and shakes his head. "Same."

"How is Hannah?"

"Fine. She loves having the house to herself every day," he says. The kid's old enough now that she doesn't need someone looking after her every second of every day, so she's home alone while Puck works. He's not really that nervous about it because she's pretty responsible and whatever and their neighbours randomly check in on her for him.

"Oh. Yes. Of course," she says quickly.

He doesn't like that. Something's up and his girl is keeping a secret. "What?"

"Nothing!"

"You're a shitty liar. What?"

"It's just...God, I really shouldn't say anything," she mutters. "Don't tell her I told you or she'll kill me."

He does not like the sounds of this. "_What_?"

"She likes a boy," she explains. He sets his jaw. Fucking hell. "And he likes her back."

"Fuck no. Not allowed."

"Noah," she giggles. "You should really watch your mouth while you're working. Daddy hates cursing."

"Yeah, I know," he says, tipping back in his chair to make sure that slip went unheard. "Maybe you shouldn't tell me this stuff when I'm here, then."

"I shouldn't have told you at all," she admits. He can hear her typing. She's really good ad multitasking, which is great, but he likes all of her attention. He's selfish that way or whatever. "His name is Ephram."

"What kind of name is Ephram?"

"A Hebrew one."

Fuck.

"Whatever," he mumbles. Thing is, he _knows_ how much his mom would have loved this. The two of them would have squealed over it and then probably called Rachel and brought her into the whole damn thing, and he's now having kind of a hard time being a big brother and wanting to beat this Ephram kid's ass. Not _that _hard a time, but still. "She's too young for that."

"She's 14," Rachel laughs.

"Too young."

"When did you have your first girlfriend."

"You were my first girlfriend."

"Shut up! I mean it," she giggles. "When?"

"I am being serious. Sophomore year. I didn't really have a _girlfriend_ before then," he explains. She's totally quiet. She either doesn't buy it or she totally loves that she was the first. "Rach?"

"I don't know if I should believe you."

"Well, I'm telling the truth, so yeah, you should," he says. He laughs a bit and she sighs into the phone. "Whatever. It's not a big deal."

"But you and Santana..."

"Me and Santana screwed a lot and she liked to think she owned me. Not exactly the same as listening to you talk for ages about fucking Broadway like you actually believed I cared," he says. She makes a sound like she disapproves of what he just said or something. But it's true. Santana was never his _girlfriend_ and she would have kicked him in the balls if he'd ever called her that. "Whatever. This is about Hannah and the fact that I'm going to lock her in the basement for at least the next two years."

She laughs and calls him crazy under her breath. (Pot, meet kettle.) "I have to go."

"Tell her not to date this kid," he says quickly.

"Noah."

"I'm serious. I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it. If your mom had told you not to sleep with Santana at that age, would you have listened?" she asks seriously.

He needs to answer this question very carefully. She knows, obviously, that he lost the big V to Santana at that age, but...Fuck. It's not like they want to _talk_ about it.

His mom did tell him not to, but he found ways. He'd rather _know_ what Hannah's doing and not like it, than her sneak around behind his back and do it anyway.

"Whatever. Hang up now, you slacker," he says. He's pissed off now. He's going to be thinking about this for the rest of the day. Thanks, Rachel.

"I'll talk to you later."

She's laughing. Bitch.

He talks to Hannah when he gets home from work and she tries to deny that there's a boy, but when he accidentally drops the name, she shouts, "Goddammit, Rachel!" and he laughs his ass off because sometimes she's so much like him it's scary.

"Look, I guess if you wanna, like, talk to this kid, it's fine. But just don't be stupid about it," he says. He thinks she'll probably understand that. Her cheeks go red and he knows she does. "And don't be pissed at Rachel, 'cause I made her tell me."

He meets this Ephram kid a couple weeks later when he picks Hannah up after she goes to watch the guy pitch a baseball game. He catches the last inning and the guy is actually good, so he starts hating him a little less. He talks to Hannah after, and Puck decides to walk over and interrupt their conversation. He figures he's allowed, since he's the one who has to make sure she's not making shitty choices and dating losers.

And the kid isn't all that bad. He could use a haircut and he's roughly six feet tall, so he towers over Hannah, but he's polite enough and acts mildly scared of Puck.

"You freaked him out!" Hannah yells once they're in the car. He laughs. "You just _had_ to tell him you've got nun-chucks. How do you even work that into a conversation without sounding like an idiot?"

He just laughs all the way home while she crosses her arms and pouts, and she calls Rachel as soon as they're inside the house. She slams her bedroom door, but he doesn't even really care.

Until Rachel calls him an hour later and tells him in her most stern voice to stop being a jackass and trying to embarrass Hannah like that. She bitches at him until he agrees, and then she's begging him for all the details and he gets her to admit that she's ready to kill this kid, too, if Hannah ends up hurt.

He totally loves her for that shit.

... ... ...

She spends a day and a half in a haze. Other than quitting her terrible job and walking out of the office without even giving them the courtesy of giving two weeks' notice, she goes to her apartment and tries to think of what to do or where to start.

She doesn't know who to call first, her fathers or Noah. She just doesn't call anyone until it's settled in her mind that this is actually happening.

Noah calls her and starts telling her how he drove Hannah to a date last night, and Ephram's parents dropped her off at home and they really aren't that bad. He says he doesn't actually hate the kid, and Rachel tries to act completely normal and like everything isn't about to change drastically.

Two days after that, when she's already bought some of the things she's going to need very soon, she finally shifts from stunned to excited and calls him to tell him.

"I got a part!" she practically yells. You'd think since she's known for days that she'd have this out of her system, but other than people at work, most of whom she doesn't care about, no one knows.

"What?" he asks loudly. He's smiling. "That's awesome!"

"I know!" She feels herself tearing up and hates herself for it, but she thinks she's allowed, after a year of auditions and rejections, to be excited by this. "It's Kiss Me, Kate. I'm playing Lilli slash Katherine, or Kate!"

He laughs a little and she knows she sounds crazy, but she doesn't even care. "Rachel, that's amazing, baby."

"Workshops start in two weeks, and I...I've known for a few days, but I didn't know how to tell you."

"This is good," he admits. She smiles and wipes her face, looks at the stack of boxes she's already packed. "I'm so fucking proud of you right now."

She thinks her smile might split her lip or something. "There's another thing." He doesn't say anything and she realizes maybe she shouldn't scare him. "It's not in New York."

That might not have been the best thing to say, in that case.

"Oh."

She can't possibly keep this news to herself any longer.

"It's in Chicago." The line is quiet and she can only hear him breathing. That's a good thing, at least. She waits a few moments before she starts getting scared.

"Chicago, Illinois?" he asks.

She giggles - can't help it - and says, "Yes, of course Chicago, Illinois."

"That's only four hours from here," he states. Yes, she knows that, too. "_Fuck_, Rachel."

He sounds so happy and so proud of her, and she wants to be there with him right now so she can see the expression on his face. She wants to know what he's feeling and he still can't put that into words sometimes, even if he is infinitely better at it than he used to be. She's sick of being apart from him, and even though four hours away in Chicago is way closer than however many (too many) away in New York, she doesn't want to have to schedule visits with him anymore.

She wants to come home to him.

"Come with me," she says, and the words tumble from her lips before she can stop them.

"What?"

"To Chicago. Come with me, Noah," she pleads. She doesn't care about begging or pride or anything like that. She just wants him, all the time, every day. "You can move. We can...Noah, we can be together."

He's quiet again. She hates it when he does that.

"Goddamn, I wish you were here right now to talk about this," he says. "Baby, this is..."

"It's not crazy, and don't you dare say it is!" She doesn't care if she's being bossy or childish. They've sacrificed all along and she's tired of it. "Noah, you can get a full time job, and Hannah...There are schools and suburbs. We could get a house and...I just really want you with me."

"I can't just pull Hannah out of school!"

"It's the summer!" she reminds him seriously. "She could start a new year at a new school and it'd be less of an adjustment."

"Rachel," he sighs, "baby, you know if it was just me, I'd do it."

She feels her heart breaking. "Don't say no," she pleads. "Please don't."

"I can't just decide this shit right now," he tells her. He sounds a little angry and she hates that. She just put everything on the line and asked him to do the one thing they've been talking about since before they even became a real couple, and he's turned her down. She should be the angry one, and she is. "I'd have to sell the house and...Fuck, Rachel, there's legal shit with Hannah and whatever, and..."

"And my dad is a lawyer!"

"Rachel," he says, like a warning. She hates that voice right now and she's so mad at him she could cry. She probably will.

"I didn't think you'd say no. I thought you'd just say yes and tell me we'd figure everything else out," she admits. That's his go-to line, so why isn't he using it the one time she'll actually believe him? "I guess I thought you wanted to be with me as much as I want to be with you."

"Come on," he groans. "Don't fucking pull that insecure bullshit with me."

"Don't make me question..."

"_Rachel_," he repeats again. He sounds as mad as she's ever heard him. "I'm hanging up before we say shit."

"_Don't._ Don't hang up," she tells him. "Why are we fighting about this?" She sighs and wipes her eyes. "It's what we both want, isn't it? So why are we fighting?"

"It's not as easy for me as it is for you," he explains. She understands that. She really does. That doesn't mean he should just not even bother trying.

"It doesn't really feel all that easy to me right now," she says quietly. He lets out another groan, and she's so mad and disappointed that she can't even talk to him anymore right now. "I have to go. I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything to my fathers. I haven't told them yet."

"Don't go."

"Goodbye."

She rarely ends their phone calls like that, so formally, with no affection. She's just having a hard time being anything but heartbroken right now.

... ... ...

If there was some kind of award for being a big fucking idiot, he'd win it. As soon as she's practically hung up on him, he realizes what a stupid asshole he's being and how fucking hurt she must be feeling. She should be nothing but happy right now, and she deserves that, and he fucked it up for her. He's the one guy who's supposed to make her feel good all the time, and he just made her so upset that she won't even answer when he calls her back.

But he's still thinking about it an hour later, and he thinks it would actually be pretty easy to move to Chicago. He's always liked it there, even though he's only been a couple times. Whatever. It's nice, and he knows there are tons of good neighbourhoods. He could probably talk to his boss at work and see if the guy knows of any clinics there where Puck could get a job, and he knows his boss would give him a reference and help him out. The house would sell easily enough. He had to have it appraised after his mom died, for legal stuff and whatever, and damn, all he really has to do is make sure Hannah won't have a fucking tantrum over leaving Lima, and they're good to go. He just needs to know whether or not he can leave the state with her or whatever, and he knows someone who can figure all that shit out for him.

So he texts Rachel right away.

_Tell your dads now or I will._

He gives it a day and a half. Rachel still won't answer his calls, which he kind of thinks he deserves or something, as much as it pisses him off. After two days, though, he walks into her house and he can immediately tell that her dad knows what's going on between the two of them. Rachel practically tells them everything, and shit has been tense lately.

"How is she?" is the first thing he asks, because he knows Mark probably knows they haven't been talking.

Her dad sighs and leans back in his chair at his desk in his office. "I don't think even she knows."

"We're not breaking up," Puck says, like it's a fact. In his mind it is one. He's actively trying to make sure of it. Mark smiles a little bit. "I need to talk about Hannah."

Mark smiles even wider and they spend the next two hours talking about Ohio state laws and all the stuff Puck doesn't really get at all. He knows Mark wouldn't steer him wrong, though. By the end of it they learn that since Puck has sole guardianship over Hannah he can basically take her wherever he goes.

He's going to Chicago.

He talks to Hannah about it and she _freaks out_. It's not even really in a bad way. She's just excited. It's weird, since he thought she'd cry her face off over leaving this Ephram kid, but she basically looks at him like he's nuts when he mentions that.

"I'm 14. He's just a guy. It's not like I'm gonna marry him," she says, and as he's laughing she asks, "Can I have my own bathroom in Chicago?"

So he's thinking she's on board with the whole thing.

He spends all night calling Rachel. Seriously, he calls until she answers, which takes about two hours. He almost starts feeling like a creep about it, but then he hears her voice and she's almost laughing, so he doesn't give a fuck.

"My god, Noah. I was in a dance class. Did you really need to call 30 times?"

"Well!" he shouts. He probably shouldn't yell at her. "I dunno. You've been ignoring me for fucking ever, so I figured I'd just call until I annoyed the fuck out of you and you answered."

"I'm still mad at you," she says. She's giving him attitude and it's kind of hot, but he thinks better of mentioning it. It'd probably wear her down a little bit, but he's got another way right now.

"Guess what I did today?" he says, grinning.

She sighs like he annoys her. "What did you do today?"

In a way it's kind of good that she's acting like she doesn't care, because when he tells her she's going to lose her shit and it'll be awesome.

"I put the house up for sale."

She doesn't make a sound and for a minute he worries he's given her a heart attack or something. And she's kinda making him nervous, because she should be screaming and telling him how awesome he is. At least that's how it played out in his head.

"Are you serious?" she asks calmly.

"Yeah," he tells her. "And I have a realtor in Chicago."

"Noah," she whispers. She sounds like she's all in disbelief and stuff, and he thinks that's kind of dumb of her.

"Fuck, Rachel, are you that surprised?" he laughs.

"After the other day, I thought...I didn't know what was going to happen." He can hear her starting to cry. Perfect. "I didn't think we were breaking up, but I thought it was going to be so tense, and...Are you really going to come?"

"Yeah," he says quietly. He ignores all the jokes in his head and just stays real with her, because this is a serious conversation and he owes it to her to keep it that way. "Sorry I was a jerk."

"I don't even care," she says, and he can hear the excitement growing in her voice. "What about Hannah?"

He laughs. "Oh, she's totally down with this. She's excited, actually." She lets out a tearful laugh, and he wants to tell her everything he's done in two days. Done for _them_. "I talked to my boss, too. I gave my notice and he's talking to some people. I don't know about the house and stuff, but as long as we're in Chicago before Hannah has to start school, we'll..."

"Stop," she says tearfully. He's kinda confused by that. "Just...This is overwhelming, and I can't...We're actually going to be together."

"Fuck yeah, baby. I can't wait."

She laughs and he doesn't want to go so long without hearing that laugh ever again.

He's a pussy and he knows it, but he doesn't care one bit.

He hears her sniffle and then laugh a little more. Fuck, she's cute and he wants her here right now. He's trying to imagine being with her every day. He's been trying to imagine it for a while, and it's hard even though he wants it so bad. He's never really had it and it's hard to think of what it'll be like to come home to her or wake up with her or...

"I'm not mad at you anymore."

Yeah, he didn't really think she would be.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Thank you all so, so, so much for your comments and reviews to this story. I love and appreciate all of them, even if I don't get a chance to reply to all of them individually. I hope you enjoy the final chapter!

... ... ...

She lives in a lonely Chicago hotel room, paid for by the production company. She goes to workshops and little rehearsals and one night has drinks with the core cast, but for the most part, she just goes back to her hotel room and does as much as possible to not feel so completely alone.

Noah tells her she's crazy when she tells him that. She's in a new city and there's so many things to do for the move, but she's not doing any of them. She's already chosen the furniture for their living room, and she's getting a gorgeous oak table from her grandmother for the dining room.

They just have to find a house. Their realtor is a nice woman, but she keeps giving them listings either out of their price range or not at all what they want. It starts a huge fight one day because Rachel asks where on earth he found this awful realtor and he gets offended. She can understand why, so she apologizes quickly, but still. It's tense, trying to get everything done and just get he and Hannah to Chicago already.

They come to visit her for a weekend to look at houses. Rachel's just so happy to see both of them that it's hard to focus on what they're actually supposed to be doing.

She still manages to 'fire' their realtor.

Honestly, though, a one bedroom condo in downtown Chicago is not at all even _remotely_ close to what they've been talking about, and Rachel decides that since this is the third awful place they've seen _today_, that maybe Rebecca can and should be replaced. She gives a pretty epic speech, takes Hannah by the hand and storms out of the condo. She's halfway to the elevator when Noah catches up to them, and Hannah is laughing so hard it actually makes Rachel smile. Noah throws his arm around her and kisses her cheek, tells her she's insane and then asks her if she has any idea who they can buy a damn house from now that they don't have a realtor.

Oh. Right. She didn't entirely think that part through. Realtors aren't hard to come by, are they? She has him pull into the closest real estate office and they end up finding a new agent that day, who promises them he'll help them find the perfect house.

"I don't like him," Noah mumbles when he slams the door to his car in the parking lot.

"What? Why?"

"'Cause he was looking at you!"

Hannah, in the back seat, groans and says, "Here we go."

"I'm not gonna let you go around the city with some guy who looks like he wants to fuck you!" Noah shouts.

Rachel turns to him. "You realize you have a 14 year old girl in your car right now, right?" she asks. Hannah laughs and he looks over his shoulder at her.

"Hannah, back me up here."

Hannah shrugs. "He's kinda right. Guy was a total douche."

Rachel huffs and rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. How dare they? She's getting a taste of what it'll be like to live with the two of them (not that she doesn't already know).

They don't say anything more about it until he's got her in his arms and Hannah's not around. "Just be careful," he says to her. She nods and leans against him. "And don't cheat on me."

It's a total joke and she's aware of it, but she hits him anyway as they both laugh, because she thinks he probably deserves it.

(They both know she never would.)

... ... ...

So maybe the guy's a douche, but he finds them the perfect house in an awesome neighbourhood, and when Rachel calls him after emailing him the listing and details, she's so fucking excited that he just wants to keep her this happy for as long as he can. They put in an offer and she loses her mind when it's accepted.

"Dude, she's nuts," Hannah whispers as they all talk on speaker. There are boxes of things packed all around and she's shaking her head. He can't really disagree, though.

Their first night in their new house, they sleep on a mattress on the floor after too much champagne. Rachel's pressed all up against him, wearing nothing but his shirt, and the only thing he can really think of that would make this situation any better is if there were rings on their fingers.

The thing is, he doesn't even know when that happened. Sure, he's thought about it along the way, basically since the beginning, how _easy_ she makes it to want her for, like, all time, but lately he's been thinking they should make all this official and she should just be his wife. He knows she'd say yes if he asked - he's known that since that first night he told her he loves her - and he really should. They've spent enough time fucking around, and now they're in the same place and it's all serious. He wants to make an honest woman of her. He also knows that if he never asked her, she'd never leave him, and weirdly, that just makes him want to ask her even more.

"Rach," he says as she wakes up in the morning. "Rachel." She lets out a purring sound and moves her leg up over his. She rubs her eye and he pushes the hair away from her face. "How much do you love me?"

He hates himself. What kind of stupid fucking question is that? And he already knows, and she's probably going to think he's a loser for even asking.

Only what she does is move her hand up to his face before taking his earlobe between her thumb and forefinger, and kiss along his jaw before pushing herself up so she's straddling him.

This is a really weird role reversal, and he's loving it.

"I could tell you," she says, pushing his boxers down off his hips. She brushes her hand against him and he's already basically dying. "Or I could show you. Which would you prefer?"

She's grinning all sexily, which is amazing since she's probably still half asleep. He reaches up and sinks his hand into the hair at the back of her head and pulls her down to him. She grinds against him and he moans right before her lips are on his, and he says, "Both." She knows he knows, but she grins anyway and pulls the shirt she's wearing up over her head. "Goddammit, Rachel."

Part of him wants to get her under him and press into her and just fucking _take_ her, but if she wants to show him, he's going to let her.

She swivels her hips and settles over him in a way that must feel amazing for her, if the way her eyes drop closed is any indication. She's wet and warm, and she moans softly when his thumbs graze her nipples.

"Noah," she whispers. She stills herself, puts her hands on his wrists to stop him from touching her tits. Well, his hands are still there, but he's ready to pay attention to what she's going to say. "I will never, ever love anyone else."

He grins at her, moves his hips a little and fuck, she's the best woman. "Just me?" he asks needlessly. His heart is absolutely racing, but he thinks it feels really fucking good.

She lets go of his wrists, lifts herself up and he slips into her, and she leans down and kisses him slowly as she rotates her hips. "Only ever you."

"_Fuck_," he groans, grabbing onto her hips. He wants her to show him now (not that he needs her to, but she promised) and when he tells her that, she just licks her lips slowly and leans back, which sends him deeper.

She stops when they're both near the brink, asks him the same question he asked her, and he gives her an answer that makes this throaty noise leave her mouth. He rolls her over and hitches her leg up, his arm under her knee, and tells her he's never fucking letting anyone else have her. She comes completely undone under him, takes him with her, and when they're in the shower together, he presses himself against her back and grabs ahold of her left hand with his.

"We're getting married," he says into her ear, lips grazing her earlobe as water falls on them.

She just nods, so he thinks he'll start looking for a ring.

... ... ...

She never thought she got stage fright, but she finds, the night of her debut, that she can barely breathe and her hair won't stay the way she wants it, and all she can think of is the dream she had last week where she forgot all her lines and she was laughed off the stage. She's just starting her career and she cannot afford a bad review. She needs to be perfect, and her director had to tell her as much - as if she didn't know on her own - an hour before the curtain is set to raise.

So she calls Noah in a panic and he asks her what is wrong with her. He doesn't sound impressed with her. She knows he hates it when she doubts her talents, but she needs him to reassure her right now.

"What if..."

"Shut the fuck up," he says harshly. "You're amazing, but you're an idiot if you think you can't do this. Man up, take your fucking cue, and blow this shit away like you know you can."

This is why she loves him. Anyone else would have babied her and fed her ego. He's not going to do that. He knows she doesn't need it. She hangs up without saying anything, but texts him a thank you so he doesn't think she's mad at him.

She takes a deep breath before her first scene, knows he's in the audience watching her, and sets out to prove that he was right. She can do this.

The reviews come out the next day and there's only one that's less than favourable. Hannah is more angry than Rachel is, takes the paper and reads it for herself, then throws it right into the trash. Noah laughs, sets his hand on Rachel's leg beneath the table and says, "Told you."

Sometimes she hates how smug he can be when he's right. Now is not one of those times.

"Yes, you did."

... ... ...

He takes the day off for Hannah's first day of school, and it's a Monday so Rachel doesn't work either. It's nice to just be with her at home and not have to worry about how loud he can make her when they're together. Hannah's made a couple friends through temple, but it's not like she's some kind of social butterfly yet, even if she's been to the movies a couple times with a few girls who go to the same school she's going to. Rachel talks about it being good that she knows people, but whatever. He doesn't care if she finds her math class before the bell rings. He cares that she makes some friends so he can have some Friday nights with his girl without a teenager in the house.

They get up to see Hannah off and make sure she gets to the bus on time. Rachel makes breakfast and Puck gives the girl a $10 for lunch and tells her not to be a bitch and make any enemies.

As soon as she's out the door, he's grabbing Rachel, 'cause it feels like ages since he had her somewhere other than their bed. Not like they don't use that often enough, but sometimes he wants to change things up a little bit, you know?

He also has a ring in a drawer in their bedroom (one she never goes in) and he plans on giving it to her after he, you know, gives it to her.

He's fucking stupid for her and it's common knowledge. When Finn and Brittany came to see them in their new place Finn pulled him aside and commented on how 'real' it was. Puck made some joke, asking if Finn thought it was make believe before or something. But yeah, it's kind of true that he's never done anything like this with anyone. He's been doing it with Rachel for, like, ever, really.

Anyway, the second time she's begging him to just give it to her, she ends up with her ass pressed against their dresser and her legs around his waist, and she's naked and wet against him, and he pulls open the drawer to her left and grabs the navy blue box from inside. She pulls her lips away from his neck so she can see what he's doing, and then holds him tighter and presses her face against his shoulder. He ends up putting the box against her, his knuckles grazing her hip as he clutches the box, because he has to steady her somehow.

"Rachel," he laughs, pushing her away. She's got her eyes closed tight, and this nervous little look on her face for some reason. "I gotta ask you."

"No," she says. She shakes her head and bites her lip and breathes all heavily. "You don't."

He knows she's not telling him not to ask, she's telling him they both know what the answer is.

So he just pops the box open and pulls the ring out, slips it onto her finger and she doesn't even look at it before she puts her arm back over his shoulder and kisses him hard. She throws her head back and practically yells his name when he pushes his fingers into her without warning. Fuck, he'll never get sick of this. He never will. He loves being with her, loves the noises she makes and how she says his name and responds to him. She's clutching his shoulder and he can feel the ring on her hand, which he thinks he's imagining, 'cause how's that possible? But then she moves her hand, and he still feels it, and he tells her to come, begs her to and tells her he fucking loves her and every second of this, and she keens his name and wraps her leg around him as she lets go.

It's not until he's got her on their bed so he can (shut up) make love to her that she even notices the ring. She's got her hand against his chest as he presses into her. He's barely inside her and she gasps, which gets his attention. She's looking at her hand and he sinks in the rest of the way.

"Noah, god," she says, sighing. He doesn't move. "It's gorgeous."

He's so fucking _proud_ to have picked that out all on his own, and he grins and kisses her, moves his lips down the hollow of her throat and asks her if she likes it.

She says yes and he doesn't know if she's talking about the ring or the sex, but the answer's the same for both, so it doesn't matter.

... ... ...

She can't stop looking at the ring, which is dangerous because he practically tackles her any time he catches her doing it.

Okay, maybe she does it on purpose once or twice.

"I can't believe we're getting married," she says one night when he's half asleep and she's wide awake. He mumbles something and she turns to him. "It just feels surreal."

He slides his hand over her hip and presses his face against her. "Believe it," he mumbles. "Love you and you're mine."

She laughs and tangles their legs together. "You're very sweet," she tells him, kissing his jaw until he moans. He grasps her thigh with his hand and wedges his knee between her thighs. "I love you, too."

"I know."

She spins her ring on her finger and he grabs her wrists, pushing them up over her head and holding them there.

"We'll never get out of bed if you keep this up," she says. She's about to laugh, but he latches onto her earlobe (that's her move and he's stealing it; but god, it feels good). "Noah."

"I like this bed," he tells her. She can feel him hardening against the front of the little pair of shorts she's wearing. "'S'a good bed."

He's not really making sense, but it's hard to care when he kisses her and rests his lower half against hers.

They go see her dads and they say something about knowing it all along. It's certainly not a surprise, she supposes. And then they mention how happy Aviva would be, and her dad pats Noah on the shoulder, and he squeezes her hand because they've already talked about this.

They're sleeping in her childhood room, and before bed that night she's brushing her teeth and he's just spit out his mouthwash, and he says, "She loved you, you know."

She smiles and spits her toothpaste into the sink. "I know," she says quietly. "I loved her, too."

"She knew I'd marry you." She rolls her eyes at him in the mirror, and when she sees the look on his face she knows he's not lying. "She was smart."

She laughs, turns around and wraps her arms around his waist. "She was amazing."

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers. "Fuck, I love you."

She loves how much he says it.

... ... ...

He asked if she wanted to do this in Chicago, since it's their new home and everything, but she shook her head and told him that no, the dress she bought is perfect for _their_ temple.

"You already bought a dress?" he asks, 'cause he had no fucking idea. "What's it like?"

She laughs and shakes her head, dodges him when he tries to grab her waist. He smiles, 'cause she's been fucking adorable and perfect (more than ever) the last few weeks as they started to plan this shit and she started showing off her ring to everyone she knows (or doesn't know, in some cases).

"I'm not telling. It's a secret," she says, pushing at him when he comes closer again.

"It's awesome and she looks amazing in it," Hannah says from the kitchen table, where she's sitting with her iPod on (apparently not loudly) and working on something for her art class.

"Baby, tell me," he begs. Rachel's busy glaring at Hannah, though. "Come on. I'mma marry you, so you should tell me."

Rachel laughs and turns to give him a look that clearly says he's pathetic. "That's exactly why I shouldn't tell you."

"You know what I'm wearing!"

"That's because I refused to let you wear your Converse with your suit!" He shrugs his shoulder and she finally lets him wrap his arms around her, rest his chin on her shoulder. "I'm not telling you."

"Then you can't be my wife," he pouts.

She laughs again and turns her head, raises her brows at him. "Sure," she says like she totally doesn't believe him at all.

Good.

She shouldn't.

... ... ...

She watches him as everyone watches her. He's just staring at her and he smiles, looks down and shakes his head, but then immediately looks back at her. She's having a hard time walking as slowly as she has to.

He doesn't let go of her hand the whole ceremony, and she loves him for it. When she pushes the ring onto his finger, he leans in to kiss her and she leans away, and their friends and families laugh at him. He doesn't even blush, just looks right at her and smiles.

He kisses her after he breaks the glass, grabs her around the waist and she laughs into his mouth, puts her hand on his face and lets him kiss her until she deems it inappropriate and pulls away.

They're escorted to their rabbi's study for a few minutes alone before everyone goes to the reception hall. Noah has his hands on her immediately and kisses her, feels the lace of her dress under his palms and groans against her lips.

Her dress is perfect. It's simple, lace over white satin, cut down tastefully between her breasts with two wide straps over her shoulders. She's wearing white Louboutins her fathers spent far too much money on, and a pearl necklace of Hannah's that belonged to Aviva. Her vail falls to the small of her back and her hair is down and curled at the ends like she knows he's always loved.

When he doesn't stop kissing her, she questions what, exactly, he's trying to accomplish right now.

"Noah." She laughs and arches her back, pulling away from him. He just sets his hands on her hips and grins at her. His eyes fall to her chest and she's not surprised at all. She knew he'd love the plunging neckline.

"We have time." She gasps and she knows how wide her eyes go. "We gotta consummate. I read it on Wikipedia."

"Oh, my god. Noah, I'm not sleeping with you at our temple!"

He grins slowly and pulls her so she's close to him again. "No one said anything about sleeping."

She shakes her head but lets him kiss her, and she thinks he's half serious, but that he knows she's not going to let him do anything inappropriate to her right now.

Not until tonight when they get to their hotel room.

(God, she can't wait.)

"I can't believe you wore sneakers," she tells him, glaring jokingly.

He laughs and wraps her up in his arms. "They're brand new. Bought 'em special."

She scoffs and pulls away, looks up at him and feels his hand slide up her back to where her dress stops. There are little covered buttons all the way down the back of the dress and he starts toying with one.

"I bought a $3500 wedding dress and you spent $50 on a new pair of shoes," she states, hand on hip.

"And bought a new suit." She giggles and he kisses her before she can catch her breath. "Love you."

"I love you, too." She pecks at his lips and takes a deep breath. "Come on. We have to go. I want to show you off as my husband to all these women who no doubt wanted to set you up with their daughters."

His hands dig into her hips and he says, "Call me that again."

"What?" she asks coyly, running her hand down his tie under the guise of straightening it. "My husband?"

She has to open the door because she doesn't trust him to be able to control himself.

... ... ...

He doesn't so much as 'wake up' and realize she's his wife, but the curtains are open and they've been up all night and he realizes it's morning. And that she's his wife.

"Hey," he says, running his hand through her now-messy hair.

"Noah, not again," she whines. "I can't. I physically can't."

He grins and leans over to kiss her cheek. "Awesome, but it's not that," he says. She turns pink and looks at him expectantly. "This is crazy."

She laughs and puts her hand under her cheek so she can see him better. "What?"

"You ever think that first summer?" He doesn't finish because he doesn't have to. And he's really fucking tired and it's like, 6:00 a.m. or something and he's been awake for a good 24 hours.

"No," she laughs. "I broke up with you."

He glares at her. "Oh, yeah."

She moves closer as she laughs, leans against him and he trails his hand up her side until it's resting against her ribs. "I shouldn't have," she admits for the first time.

"Doesn't matter."

She sighs and closes her eyes, presses herself against him and kisses his chest, right over his heart. He'd complain, but she's sentimental like that and he doesn't hate it at all.

"I don't like to think of the time before I loved you," she says sleepily.

He kisses her forehead, closes his eyes and wraps his fingers around her hand, toys with her rings.

"So don't."

She falls asleep easily in this position, and he lets out a breath and opens his eyes, catches sight of her dress in the room. It's carefully laid over the chair in the corner because she wants to keep it. She didn't say why, but it doesn't matter. He'll give her whatever she wants, and it was nothing to him to make sure he was gentle with it. She looked fucking incredible in it and he doesn't think he'll ever forget how he felt when he saw her walking towards him. He'll never tell anyone, maybe not even her, because it's his own little memory from their wedding. He's sure she's got a couple of her own.

He's thought about their past a lot in the last couple days. The guys took him out for beers and practically asked for the whole story, so he told them as much as he felt comfortable telling. Fuck, he's been through the world with this girl and he's signing himself up for more.

They're supposed to leave for their honeymoon in a matter of hours, and she'll probably freak out when she wakes up and realizes it. Right now, he's just going to let her sleep. Partly because she needs it, and partly because he just really loves the feel of her in his arms.

He's just about asleep when he feels her little hand drifting between them, her lips on his jaw and her tiny voice saying, "I just can't help it," like he's asked her what changed between 15 minutes ago and now. She wraps her hand around him, and yeah, he's fucking exhausted, but he has no intentions of stopping her. "I just love you." She kisses him and pushes him onto his back. "So much."

"We can sleep in Aruba," he teases, nipping at her lips. She laughs and gives him a doubtful look. He chuckles softly. Yeah, probably not. "We can sleep when we get back."

"Maybe," she says all seductively. He rolls her beneath him and it traps her hand against his pelvis. "If I let you."

He pulls her hand away, kisses her lazily and slowly, reminds her that they've got to leave soon. She tells him she doesn't care and that he can definitely get her off at least three more times before they have to start getting ready to check out and head to the airport.

When they get to their hotel in Aruba, he's carrying their bags and comes up behind her at the front desk just in time to hear her say, "Noah and Rachel Puckerman," and he can barely control himself until they're inside their room.

... ... ...

"You ever think maybe we're kind of awesome together?" he asks one night when they're on the balcony of their suite and she's got her head on his lap and he's playing with her fingers.

It's obviously a ridiculous question and she glances up at him to see him looking out over the water, a little grin on his lips.

"Once or twice."

He laughs, cards his fingers through her hair and says, "Me, too."

"Remember when you didn't want to date me?"

She watches him look down at her like she's being stupid. "No," he answers, and she thinks that, in some way, he's telling the truth.

They're quiet for a bit as she thinks about it, how the timing was always terrible and they both did stupid things that prevented them from being together. She remembers the first time she admitted she liked him, the first time she called him her boyfriend and the first time she told him she loved him. Now she's calling him her husband at every chance she gets, and it's a novelty she thinks will never wear off.

She thinks of how she wanted to cut him out of her life that first summer when she dated him and ended it, thinking it'd be harder to maintain a relationship. If only she'd known then what she knows now.

"Sorry I broke up with you. Twice," she says. She's smiling up at him mostly because she knows his response to this statement is bound to be hilarious and just make her fall in love with him more, which, surprisingly, she's finding is entirely possible.

"Yeah, thanks a lot," he says, raising his brow and glancing down at her. She giggles and loops her arm around his. He's got his hand resting on her stomach now, so she slides her hand up his arm. "Just don't do it again."

She laughs far louder than she should, but really, does he think she will?

She pushes herself off the loveseat they've been sitting on, stands and holds out her hands as she looks down at him and he smiles up at her.

"Let me make it up to you."

"I think you did that when you married me," he says, sliding his hand up her body and letting his thumb move against the side of her breast.

She lets out a whimper and looks down to see him looking far too proud, considering he's made her make that exact sound a million times before. Maybe not so much with words, though.

"I can't tell you how much I love being your wife," she admits breathily.

He stands, circles his arms around her waist and starts pushing her back into their room.

"Try."

**_-Fin-_**


End file.
